Associates of US President Donald Trump have been hired by the Cameroon government to boost the disastrous human rights image of the country. This was revealed by the Foreign Policy platform a couple of weeks ago. PR agency Clout Public Affairs (CPA) will collect US$ 55,000 every month for several years. Its mission: ‘to promote a favourable image’ for the country that suffers under the kleptocratic rule of the one of the continent’s longest serving autocrats Paul Biya. CPA is instructed to target...
Associates of US President Donald Trump have been hired by the Cameroon government to boost the disastrous human rights image of the country. This was...
At AEF Live!, the annual come together of the consultancy firm and sponsor of the lecture on June 13, 2019 in Utrecht, Asante and Helberg reflected on the event. As a starting point for the chat, moderated by Sandra Rottenberg, both choose a quote from Sisonke Msimang’s speech which was entitled: ‘Rescuing Mandela from Sainthood.’ Asante’s choice here . Helberg’s choice here . Why do white people so often only feel empathy with white people, Asante wondered in response to Msimang's words. Why was...
At AEF Live!, the annual come together of the consultancy firm and sponsor of the lecture on June 13, 2019 in Utrecht, Asante and Helberg reflected on...
How a pastor accused of sexual abuse reminded me of Aunty Dupe, the boarding house mistress. Backstory: Busola Dakolo is an alumnus of my secondary school. That was where she was when she first knew Biodun Fatoyinbo. At the time, Busola was a school fellowship leader. Like Busola, I had been a student fellowship leader in the same school. Back in Busola’s home town, Fatoyinbo was a fellowship leader. Nowadays he is the senior pastor of a popular, youth-oriented church, the Commonwealth Of Zion...
How a pastor accused of sexual abuse reminded me of Aunty Dupe, the boarding house mistress. Backstory: Busola Dakolo is an alumnus of my secondary...
Attending the opening of the South African parliament in June, several of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters enjoyed thirty-seven bottles of Veuve Cliquot and Moët et Chandon champagne, Meerlust Rubicon wine, Glenfiddich whiskey and Tanqueray gin in a luxury villa in Cape Town. The last time I visited South Africa was in the late eighties of the last century. It was bad, but uncomplicated, then. Whites were rich and blacks were poor. Whites were in charge and blacks had to keep their mouths...
Attending the opening of the South African parliament in June, several of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters enjoyed thirty-seven bottles of Veuve...
There are no simple explanations, Dr Rahmane told a journalist meeting at the Leiden Africa Studies Centre. But he did give his audience some clues. Where does Salafi radicalism in the Sahel come from? Where does it stand today? Where is it heading? So, as you can see, these really are overview interrogations, not deep research questions. But while it might be somewhat easy to respond to the two first ones, the last one is obviously a bit more complicated to grapple with. And also, prefacing those...
There are no simple explanations, Dr Rahmane told a journalist meeting at the Leiden Africa Studies Centre. But he did give his audience some clues....
"Quote me anywhere!" the Hon. Minister for Labour & Productivity Chris Ngige shrieked with his guttural laryngitis effect. Even if he had accomplished nothing in all his years in politics, he could at least claim to have demolished Nigeria's chronic shortage of Human Resources for Health by word of mouth. To wit, if our medical schools could magically react to Ngige's political coprolalia by turning out 285 345 new doctors overnight, we would have only just begun to have enough. In truth, at least...
"Quote me anywhere!" the Hon. Minister for Labour & Productivity Chris Ngige shrieked with his guttural laryngitis effect. Even if he had accomplished...
Here was an African leader taking a strong stand against corruption and promoting true no-nonsense policies. He put a stop to fancy parties and other unnecessary expenditure. Tanzanian president, nicknamed ‘The Bulldozer’, was warmly welcomed by the international media as well as by many Tanzanians and others on the continent longing for good governance and a better life. Wherever bad governance showed its ugly face #WhatWouldMagafuliDo? went viral. Last week the president stated that ‘men should...
Here was an African leader taking a strong stand against corruption and promoting true no-nonsense policies. He put a stop to fancy parties and other...
On 29 March 1988 five bullets ended the life of South African liberation movement activist Dulcie September. After years in prison and decades in exile, she spearheaded anti-Apartheid efforts in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg from a small office in Paris. Why was she killed? Who profited from her murder? Why do her killers roam free? This is the first episode of the podcast series They Killed Dulcie . It's the epic story of the life and death of a struggle hero who appears to have been erased,...
On 29 March 1988 five bullets ended the life of South African liberation movement activist Dulcie September. After years in prison and decades in exile,...
The Buzzfeed platform last week published a shocking story exposing widespread human rights violations against suspected poachers in six African and Asian wildlife parks. There is evidence of torture, rape and murder and that these practices were funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). We welcome the renewed attention for the shameless practices of so-called nature conservationists. The involvement of the WWF, for which the story provides convincing evidence, raises alarm bells. The...
The Buzzfeed platform last week published a shocking story exposing widespread human rights violations against suspected poachers in six African and...
What would a borderless world look like? It sounds like utopia but in his essay, South Africa-based Cameroonian thinker Achille Mbeme makes the realities of borders, restrictions and the right to move denied to most people in the world look far more surreal than the alternative. Mbembe identifies three freedoms in liberal thinking: freedom of movement, freedom of capital and freedom of services. Where are the people, he asks. People on the move are seen as a threat to order. The paradox of a...
What would a borderless world look like? It sounds like utopia but in his essay, South Africa-based Cameroonian thinker Achille Mbeme makes the realities...
We are shocked by the assassination of our Ghanaian colleague and investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein Suale. Suale was murdered on Wednesday 16 January, 2019 in Madina, Ghana. He was part of the Tiger Eye and the African Investigative Publishing Collective, both partner organisations of ZAM. He contributed immensely to efforts to sanitise governance in Ghana through his work that has exposed corruption, wrongdoing, conflict of interest, waste, maladministration and outright thievery in this West...
We are shocked by the assassination of our Ghanaian colleague and investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein Suale. Suale was murdered on Wednesday 16...
On Monday 17 December, 2018, our colleague Estacio Valoi and his team were arrested by the Mozambican army. When investigative journalist Estacio Valoi, known for his reports on plunder of natural resources in northern Mozambique, went to report on the situation in conflict-ridden and desperately poor Chitolo village, he and his team found the road blocked by soldiers upon their return. What followed was a day and night of terror for the team of three -with Valoi were USA-based lecturer and Amnesty...
On Monday 17 December, 2018, our colleague Estacio Valoi and his team were arrested by the Mozambican army. When investigative journalist Estacio Valoi,...
At first glance conservative Dutch politician Wybren van Haga and the left wing in the Netherlands have nothing in common. Not when it comes to fighting the global gap between rich and poor (Van Haga’s liberal VVD party, like the UK Tories and the US Republicans, wants that gap bigger); not when it comes to health and education (VVD, again like Tories and Republicans, wants less of that) and certainly not when it comes to migrants coming to the Netherlands. The Dutch left wing stands for...
At first glance conservative Dutch politician Wybren van Haga and the left wing in the Netherlands have nothing in common. Not when it comes to fighting...
The story begins: 'They found her lying on her bed. Washington Mbhozo’s body was on top of hers. He was naked and she was not. It was immediately obvious that she had killed him. She had lodged the knife firmly—expertly even—under his ribs. It had not been so difficult to find the soft spot and drive the knife upwards. Her boy cousins killed goats by slashing their necks—first fondling the pulse and then leaning into the animals. It was always such an intimate embrace. It had been the same when she...
The story begins: 'They found her lying on her bed. Washington Mbhozo’s body was on top of hers. He was naked and she was not. It was immediately obvious...
Twenty years ago, on the eve of International Aids Day, Simon Tseko Nkoli passed away. Simon was a political activist against apartheid and a campaigner for equal rights for LGBTI people. He was imprisoned in the 80s for his participation in protests against white suppression in South Africa. After his release in 1988 he launched the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW). This organisation played a pivotal role in the campaign for the inclusion of an 'equal rights clause' for...
Twenty years ago, on the eve of International Aids Day, Simon Tseko Nkoli passed away. Simon was a political activist against apartheid and a campaigner...
We want to talk about coffee. The reason for this is the Coffee Barometer 2018’s shocking conclusion that Fairtrade does not give farmers an extra penny. Or shocking? An investigation by African and Dutch journalists into practices in the cocoa industry, co-initiated and published by ZAM in 2013, came to the same conclusion. Interviews with 200 farmers in West Africa, supported by data research by Dutch colleagues, showed that Fairtrade was a rip-off of the western consumer, and no good – in some...
We want to talk about coffee. The reason for this is the Coffee Barometer 2018’s shocking conclusion that Fairtrade does not give farmers an extra penny....
On November 18, Lucia Raadschelders passed away in Johannesburg after a long battle with cancer. As a friend of ZAM, Lucia was instrumental in the collaboration between our organisation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF). In the early eighties, Lucia joined the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement and co-ordinated several youth and women’s campaigns. From 1987 she took part in Operation Vula, an underground ANC project aimed at the intensification of the struggle against apartheid. Running ‘safe...
On November 18, Lucia Raadschelders passed away in Johannesburg after a long battle with cancer. As a friend of ZAM, Lucia was instrumental in the...
Essay – In the late 1990s, Kiza Magendane and his uncle left their native country of Congo to start a new life elsewhere. Kiza ended up in the Netherlands, his uncle in South Africa. Nineteen years later they meet in Pretoria. 'Kiza, the South African dream does not exist.' I have landed. After ten years of Europe, I set foot on the African continent again. The customs lady at Johannesburg airport wants to know everything about the reason for my visit. Patiently I show my travel document and the...
Essay – In the late 1990s, Kiza Magendane and his uncle left their native country of Congo to start a new life elsewhere. Kiza ended up in the...
Where’s that brandy, folks, let us drink! In January 1995, I produced an item for Diogenes, the foreign affairs program of the Dutch VPRO television station. Lord Carrington had previously been portrayed in a series about people who had played a significant role in historical periods. This English politician had mediated in the Yugoslavian conflict. Now it was Botha’s turn, the former foreign minister of South Africa. The editor-in-chief called me in a bright state of excitement, his cut-out folder...
Where’s that brandy, folks, let us drink! In January 1995, I produced an item for Diogenes, the foreign affairs program of the Dutch VPRO television...
An early nineties whites-only pub in Ventersdorp, South Africa, a recent meeting of the neighbourhood watch in Pretoria, a conference of the Young Liberals in the Netherlands. What’s the difference? It was probably Uncle Boetie’s bottle of township homebrew that caused me to have such nightmares. First I dreamt that I was back in the early nineties, in Thirsty’s Pub & Grill Kroeg in Ventersdorp. This was already crazy since, being of darker hue, in real life I have only ever sneaked past Thirsty’s...
An early nineties whites-only pub in Ventersdorp, South Africa, a recent meeting of the neighbourhood watch in Pretoria, a conference of the Young...
African people who cross oceans in search for a better life are not desperate. They are hopeful. I used to be ashamed of television images of young African economic migrants, or so-called fortune seekers. In 2013, I was a first year student in Amsterdam. Just like today, the number of black students at the university could be counted on one hand. Like my fellow students, I had a Dutch digital ID, but our perceptions of the world differed enormously. While they were surrounded with successful people...
African people who cross oceans in search for a better life are not desperate. They are hopeful. I used to be ashamed of television images of young...
