Out of Africa

I had meant to do this a while ago, but kept on putting it off. But as our class is coming to an end, I wanted to take the time to mention the blogs of some of my classmates who have featured Africa in one form or the other in their blogs.

• James Edwards – The Violence Project: With an entire blog about violence in Chicago, it’s kind of hard to feature news pertaining to Africa. But James did it in this post about Francis Oduro, a Ghanaian international student who was shot to death. Along with the Violence Project, my prayers go out to the Oduro family.
• Holly Fox – Familienpolitik: A new family law in Mali that would give illegitimate children inheritance rights is the subject of this post. Islamic groups are against this change and Holly provides an interesting comparison to the meaning of marriage and a marriage certificate in Mali versus the United States.
• Christa Hillstrom – Human Goods: In an earlier post I had linked to Christa’s blog about slavery in Mauritania. A more recent post looks at a former slave in Niger who is suing the government for not enforcing anti-slavery laws. In a country were human rights groups estimate about 43,000 people are still living in slavery, this is just the kind of accountability African countries need to be held to.
• Erin Halasz – Wikileads: Erin’s blog follows the online conversation about Wikileaks and the myriad ways in which its uncensorable, untraceable documents appear in public discourse. If you don’t know what Wikileaks is, basically it’s a site that leaks a whole lot of info, but is primarily user-generated like Wikipedia and stuff (Erin, or anyone else who knows, correct me if I’m wrong!). Some of the confidential documents received anonymously includes corruption in Kenya and other “shoddy standards of human rights” in sub-Saharan Africa. One of Erin’s particular posts highlights a recent posting on Wikileads of an invoice for Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Defense, charging the country for a shipment of Chinese rockets, bombs and rounds of mortar.

I hope you take the time to check out their blogs, and while these are the only posts about Africa, each is very interesting and sophisticated. To see more blogs from my class, check out our class Web site.

In an earlier post, I wrote about Nigerians being killed and harassed in South Africa. Well, the violence against African immigrants in South Africa has been increasing. While the government is attempting to quell this issue, quite a few people have died and continued to be displaced.

One South African compares the country to America and it’s illegal immigration debates. She writes:

South Africa has been considered an inspiration to those fighting for freedom and equality through its grassroots movements for racial equality, voting reform and the unique way it has dealt with its violent past. In our appreciation of how far it has come, we seem to have forgotten that the struggles of the democratic South Africa are far from over.

Leading up to this, statements have been made bringing this growing xenophobia to the light and urging South Africans to flee from it. There had also been a call to naturalize the millions of illegal immigrants living in the country, many listed as refugees and receiving asylum.