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A
round-up of African blogs
Sokari
Ekine
Extracted
from Pambazuka News 217
July 28, 2005
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=29006
Introducing
Blogs
Blogs,
short for Weblogs, are the people's media. A blog is a website that
enables anyone to write their story, express their opinions on other
people's stories, articles and reports, provide commentary, alternative
views and additional facts and create lists of just about anything.
Blogs are an
important development both in internet technology and in the production
of media. Each entry is date and time stamped and posts appear in
chronological order and in categories. The posts are interactive
as they allow for readers to leave comments and enter into discussions.
Blogs can cover
any topic ranging from politics, culture, music, media, personal
journals, technology, the list is endless. They can be written by
one person or a group of people or even a small community. People
who write blogs are called bloggers and the community of bloggers
is known as the blogosphere. It is estimated that there are some
60 million blogs worldwide.
In the African
Blog Roundup I will be presenting a weekly digest of some of the
stories and commentary in the African blogosphere. Unfortunately
this time of the year blogging is at its lowest due to people taking
their vacations but things should return to normal by September.
I will start with some of my favourite African blogs one of which
is the Kenyan Democracy Project (http://demokrasia-
kenya.blogspot.com/ ) who report from Nairobi on the ongoing
demonstrations called by opposition groups opposing Mwai Kibakis
handling of the Bomas draft constitution and the violent response
by the police. The question being asked is
"Why are the
police on the streets? Why are innocent people being arrested merely
for wishing to stage their right of expression? I want the Minister
to tell us what police are doing roaming our streets. When did he
declare Kenya a police state? Couldnt they be better used in other
insecurity-prone areas like Marsabit?"
Indeed we should
all ask the why?
African Bullets
and Honey (another Kenyan blog) http://
bulletsandhoney.blogspot.com/ poses the question are the formerly
colonised set to colonise their colonisers?
Apparently due
to a decline in the numbers of British men entering priesthood,
churches in Britain are having to import African priests to take
over rural parishes.
We are entering
an era when the welfare of the European soul shall be in the hands
of the African. Europe has always had a peculiar need for Africa
as a guiding light to its self awareness. The two, African and European,
in the latter's mind at least, have occupied opposed sides of a
binary divide for the last couple of hundred years: black vs. white;
stupid as opposed to intelligent; savage vs. civilised; backward
vs. forward; lazy vs. industrious.
This is ironic
considering the early days of colonialism when racism was being
constructed by the Empire, and the story was us Africans had no
souls. The tables have now been turned and it is Europe that needs
re-envangelising!
The Zimbabwean
Pundit (http://zimpundit.blogspot.com/2005/07/farmers-urged-not-return.html)
has an interesting piece on the Zimbabwean government secretly asking
for white commercial farmers to return to their land. However a
right wing lobby group for the farmers has asked them not to heed
the call until there is rule of law, an independent judiciary and
firm guarantees property rights will be respected .
Ethiopundit
(http://ethiopundit.blogspot.com/2005/07/rule
-britannia.html) declares that World War IV is still being fought
today on British soil.
Through experience,
historical memory, and without a doubt a healthy dose of cultural
programming on two continents, we have acquired a profound affection
and respect for the people of the UK. It is certainly a well-deserved
regard in every aspect from humanity's lessons in the Magna Carta
onto the Royal Navy ending the Atlantic slave trade and the lonely
years of fighting Nazi Germany alone onto the road to Basra just
two years ago. Certainly from the Boston Massacre to the bloody
suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion there are stains on that record...
but at this point other, at times painful, truths emerge.
Britain's existence
has to an astonishing degree been a boon for mankind.
Ethiopundit
then goes on to publish the complete Rule Britannia. I think they
call this re-writing history!
* Compiled
by Sokari Ekine, who runs her own blog that you can visit at http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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