France infantilizes its former colonies

I remember vividly travelling throughout West Africa: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea-Conakry, The Gambia and Cape Verde back in 2003. Coming to Timbuktu and Niafunke - the birth place of the Blues legend Ali Farka Toure was indeed the most exciting and inspiring part of this whole soul- searching journey to that part of the world.


I was trying to follow the traces of the slave trade and visiting “the former slave houses” in different countries in this region gave me a new spectrum and perspective on life which broadened my parameters and scope on West Africa. Mali being one of the poorest countries on the planet has had a number of rebellions by the Tuareg people in the vast desert area. The entities which compose the nation-state have never been strong enough in Mali. The fragmental nature of its institutions and the lack of economic progress has always been the centre of all the difficulties that the nation has faced for decades.

The current crisis in Mali can only be understood holistically if the historical perspective of the French colonialism is taken into account. The French has always advocated “infantilization” and “assimilation” of their former colonies.

French interests in the natural resources of many countries in Africa have always been defended through massacre and warfare like in Ivory Coast, Libya, etc. France has many military bases across Africa to achieve these goals. Why the Malian government and army are so weak to the extent that they need the “help” of France is a very legitimate question that everybody needs to ask.

Professor Jeremy Keenan´s article in New African January 2013 is mind blowing in this respect. He believes that it is the US and Algerian covert activities which sowed the seeds of the conflict by creating terrorist groups like Islamic Maghreb and others in order to justify their launching of a new Saharan front in the “Global war on Terror”. I am not so much into conspiracy theory but the argument of the professor makes sense to me from a standpoint of a pan-Africanist. The Americans have been working hard to have military bases across Africa – AFRICOM, to no avail for years.

The current mess in Mali allows foreign intervention and gives another excuse for the “fight against terrorism”. I dislike the fundamentalists who are destroying and terrorizing the population in Northern Mali but I can not understand the logic of calling the former colonial master to “save you” from those who are created by the west from the beginning. It takes a mental slavery to behave this way. You have different deficiencies of Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone but thanks God there is nothing called Italiphone to my knowledge!

Imagine Eritrea calling for the Italians to save us from rebels or an eventual Ethiopia invasion. It is completely unthinkable and unimaginable thanks to our self-determination and mindset of self-reliance/self-sufficiency.

No body denies the fact that the overthrow of Muhammad Kaddafi and the Libyan war spilled over into Mali as the rebels there used to fight for the late colonel but Malian problems do not call for a military solution alone.

There is no conflict that could be solved without the facilitation of political settlement which advocates social justice and fair distribution of resources in Mali. Keenan concludes: Washington´s Global War on Terror has come home to roost for the peoples of the Sahara.

Philosophy is perhaps the very purpose of life

The New Year 2013 has been around for a week and a half now. I do not have any particular new year´s resolution per se to live up to but I keep on questioning status quo and pondering over life unabated.


I want to believe that Humania is condemned to a lifetime freedom.

What does freedom entail though on an individual level?

*Pursuing your goals and desires without any hindrance,

*Doing whatever you want to do without affecting other people negatively,

*To be your own boss,

*To be where you want to be,

*To have the means to travel as much as you want,

*To feel total happiness and equanimity with the ups and downs in the mundane of life, etc.

The absence of daily routine and social context seems to be taking its toll on me right now. Job opportunities do not exist in abundance here in Eritrea as it is a country still resurrecting from the devastation of war. The current situation with neither war nor peace is not helping either as the country needs to be vigilant towards its enemies in the horn of Africa and beyond.

“Creating your own work” is the melody everywhere right now. I have been thinking about different areas of business but I do not feel that I am the right person to be selling and buying things. It is not in my DNA at all. Trying it may open up my mind, so I prefer not to say never ever in the business world.

I have also to admit the fact that the Lutheran culture of work-holism does not appeal to me and has never appealed before either. I have never thought that working 8 hours a day Monday-Friday is the ultimate meaning of life even if it is something one enjoys doing. Life is too short just to be entirely spent at a working place with colleagues and assignments you most dislike.

A responsible citizen of the world full of bewilderment and wonderings can not stop thinking about the very purpose of life.

I am reading Alain De Botton´s book “The consolations of philosophy” (2000). He refers to the philosophy of Socrates, Epicurus, etc. in ancient Greece and tries to give us some consolations in times of feeling unpopularity, not having enough money, frustration, inadequacy, a broken heart and all sorts of difficulties.

The emphasis is on being a critical citizen by asking uncomfortable questions. “Conventional wisdom” exerts a lot of pressure on individuals to follow mainstream opinions that compel them to do things they actually do not enjoy.

One should ask what success and failure mean as everything in between is a journey of wisdom that engenders a lot of lessons. No one is a looser in these endeavours in my view. Everyone is just trying to make sense of their mere presence on this planet which has not welcomed us all with open arms and equal rights and opportunities.

Humility before all challenges in life is a must as we did not after all apply for an entry visa to come to this world. It was our parents who took that crucial decision and thought that we would be having some nice time on earth. We might not be having that fun all the time but it is still okay to be above the ground and experience things that give us new perspectives.

It takes more than a gut to stand for the true virtues and convictions of the life path one has decided to follow and die for it as Socrates did. Facing death with that sort of composure amidst a crowd who behaved like a bunch of wild animals is indeed inspiring even now in 2013, more than 2400 years later.

The philosophy of Epicurus focused on the importance of pleasure. He asserts that:

“Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life confirming what many had long thought but philosophy had rarely accepted. The philosopher confessed his love of excellent food:

“The beginning and root of every good is the pleasure of the stomach. Even wisdom and culture must be referred to this.”

Philosophy properly performed was to be nothing less than a guide to pleasure:

“The man, who alleges that he is not yet ready for philosophy or that the time for it has passed him by, is like the man who says that he is either too young or too old for happiness.” (Ibid: 50-51).

Freedom, Friendship and thought are the three most important components of happiness for Epicurus.

Freedom requires taking responsibility for the life of yourself and others. To be exempted from doing things that are boring and exhausting does not necessarily mean that one has more freedom than others unless this exemption gives opportunity to other individuals to realize their full potentials.

Human beings are social animals and their need for confirmation is more omnipresent than other creatures. Friendship is the ultimate resort where your weakness and strength become the focal point of attention. True friends care and raise critical issues that develop you as a human being.

Descartes theory of “Cogito, ergo sum” comes to my mind when I think of “thought”. I think therefore I exist. Thinking makes us question, doubt, feel anxiety and uncertainty for the rest of our lives as long as we claim to be homosapiens.

Life would probably be much more boring if we had all the answers for all our questions. Philosophy might not give us “happiness” as such but provides us with the tools to pursue the very purpose of us being wherever we are at this moment. A healthy and prosperous living means philosophising full time until the last breathes of our lives.

Svenska media suger..

Många Svenska journalister är naiva och deras naivitet skrämmer mig fruktansvärt mycket. Sverige vill gärna framställa sig som yttrande frihetens försvarare på alla fronter.


Fallet Dawit Isaak har fått ett stort genomslag i det avlånga landet på sistone till den grad att någon lösning har försvårats på kort sikt.

Den svenska media fortsätter att svartmåla Eritrea och vägrar att överhuvudtaget berätta om några positiva framsteg som görs i landet.

Jag tog kontakt med Göteborgs posten för några veckor sedan och frågade om de skulle vara intresserad av ett eller flera reportage som skulle spegla verkligheten i Eritrea.

Det svar jag fick från dem var väldigt obehagligt och korkat:

” Du står regimen väldigt nära. Vi vill veta på vilket sätt din flyttning till Eritrea gagnar yttrandefriheten i landet.”

De vill politisera mitt enskilda val att flytta hit. Jag fattar inte hur korkade människor kan ibland vara.

Svensk hyckleri är ett välkänt fenomen men när folk försöker att göra sig till hjälte på andra människors tragedi, är det väldigt osmakligt. Dawit Isaak hade aldrig fått chansen att utöva sitt yrke som journalist i Sverige.

Han arbetade som lokalvåradare bl.a. på Liseberg och i Domkyrkan i Göteborg som kallas för Sveriges framsida. En av anledningarna till att han flyttade tillbaka till Eritrea var också just avsaknaden av möjlighet att utvecklas som journalist/författare och människa i Sverige.

Gud vet hur många invandrare som bl.a. är journalister, läkare eller civilingenörer o.s.v. som aldrig får möjlighet att arbeta inom sina yrken i sverige.

Statsministern Fredrik Reinfeldt har också sagt att arbetslösheten bland etniskt Svenskar är ändå väldigt låg vilket innebär att det är helt okej folk av ett annat ursprung utsätts för diskriminering och mass arbetslöshet.

Sverige har inte något moraliskt överttag att läxa upp Eritreaner om mänskliga rättigheter, demokrati och yttrande frihet.

Att fortsätta trakassera en nation som försöker att stå på egna ben, gagnar ingen. Monologen bör ta slut och en genuin dialog som grundar sig på respekt för varandra mellan nord och syd krävs för att hitta någon kompromis.

Den koloniala mentaliteten genomsyrar svensk media även undet 2000-talet. Den klumpiga svenska regimen, några journalister på bl.a. Dagens nyheter, Göteborgs posten och expressen är skyldiga till att ha skapat ett infekterat klimat mellan Eritrea och Sverige.

Orsaken till status quo är bl.a. svenskarnas arrogans och ignorans. Dessa må vara deras signum i kombination med en barnslig naivitet men frågan är vad man vinner på ett sådant beteende.

Det är bättre att folk ger sig lite tid att lära sig om Eritreas historia och kultur. Direkt konfrontation med Eritrea leder aldrig till någon lösning som gynnar alla inblandade parter.

Dawits familj står närmast honom och man borde ta hänsyn till deras vädjan till att få slut på den svenska mediakampanjen.

Jag har aldrig förstått varför bara den ena sidan med Leif Brink och Essayas Isaak hörs i Svensk media i större utsträckning än de andra familjmedlemmarna som valt en annan strategi att tackla problemet.

Anledningen är väl att Dawits andra syskon och barn inte tror på mediakampanjen och förespråkar ett sansat förhållningssätt till det hela. De saknar också sponsörer och kontaktnätverk inom svensk media.

Svensk media har aldrig varit fri och oberoende som den vill göra sig gällande. Vi vet vilka som har monopol på ordet i Svea. 80 % av all media är borgerligt ägt och Bonniers familj har en hel del innehav inom pressvärlden från tidningar till Radio och TV.

Enkelspårigheten och förutsäbraheten i svenska media förklaras också av ägandestrukturen i landet. Det finns ingen mångfaldighet att överhuvudtaget tala om. Man får skörda som man sår.

Den mäsnkliga tragedi av Dawits fall utnyttjas maximalt av svensk media som saknar all saklighet. Avvikande åsikter är aldrig välkomna och ingen tar sig tid att fråga sig varför över 80% av Eritrianer i Sverige stödjer sin regering i Asmara.

Jag bor och lever i Eritrea och häpnas varje dag av folkets beslutsamhet att klara av den svåra vardagen och bygga upp landet trots hela världens både politiska och ekonomiska sanktioner.

Västerländsk arrogans går inte hem hos oss Eritreaner och folket kommet aldrig att ge vika. Dawit är vår bror och vi bryr oss om honom mer än någon annan. Människan lever alltid på hoppet och lösningen till detta och annat kan bara komma från Eritreanerna själva.

INGEN ANNAN!

There is nothing called an African culture.

I used to hear people in Sweden saying “I am going to Africa” or “I am attending a course in an African dance”, etc. A continent of 55 countries easily clustered together to a single entity.


The variety of this continent is remarkable. Africa is a continent of great contrast and diversity. Its vast size is more than three times the land area of the continental United States. The democratic republic of Congo alone is as big as the entire Western Europe.

The languages spoken on the continent are perhaps as many as a thousand, which are as distinct as English is from German (Martin and O´Meara:1995:13).

I wonder why grove generalizations are always made concerning the African continent despite the amazing diversity. The impact of colonialism and slavery in perpetuating racially based bizarre ideologies towards black people is enormous and is still felt in every corner of the planet.

“The invention and reinvention of Africa and Africans” by Europe and “The scramble for Africa” are still continuing unabated though in a different form now compare to the colonial era.

The very origin of calling the cradle of humanity - the African continent: “The darkest and most exotic continent” by Europeans, has to do with their inferiority complex and need to justify their “civilizing missions”in the 18th century. Everything was allowed in the rampancy of ignorance and arrogance.

Even now when we are supposed to be “enlightened” and “inter-connected” with all sorts of social media, people continue to have the same prejudice as before. Using zoological and derogatory terminologies regarding black folks is a quite “normal” phenomenon. These negative connotations do not even engender any reaction from the public anymore.

The term “ethnic” is a creation of colonialism along with “tribes”. One can ask why the same terminologies are not applied on people of European origins. This is the question Antoine Lema raises in his book Africa Divided – The creation of “Ethnic Groups” (1993).

It is beyond any doubt that ethnic groups, as a form of static and dogmatic markers of identity, have not always existed in sub-Saharan Africa. Lema (Ibid) questions why sixteen million Igbo in Biafra, Nigeria and sixty million Hausa in Northern Nigeria are called tribes and ethnic groups and not nations in terms of peoples or socio-cultural groups.

While the Austrian people, the Swedish people and the Danish people under the same period and with populations that are less than ten million are called nations. For Lema, it is obvious that some process of ethnic marking and ethnic management has taken place when it comes to the African population.

He further questions what an ethnic group is and how old ethnic groups are in Africa. Why European immigrants in Africa are never called ethnic groups, whereas Africans in their own continent are.

Colonialism has historically contributed immensely in the creation of ethnic identities through the policies of assimilation, division and sub-division, and on the bases of belonging to certain physical and socio-cultural features.

Aiden Campbell´s book ‘Western primitivism: African Ethnicity: A Study in Cultural Relations’ (1997) is a path breaking work in demystifying so-called “African tribalism” and “savagery primitivism”.

He argues that tribal barbarism from Africa tend to be employed by Western commentators with the intention of emphasizing humanity´s potential for evil, rather than solely laying stress upon African atavism.

The only logical conclusion that one can draw here for the sake of humanity is: There is nothing called an African culture or dance. There are distinct cultures and cosmologies within the continent but not a single entity that is the embodiment of Africa and Africans.

Nigeria, we belive in...

Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe are just two of the many legendary writers from Nigeria. Soyinka and Achebe have written quite a lot of books and articles about subjects ranging from the colonial legacy to the “failure of Nigeria”.

 Being the largest country in the African continent with an estimated population of 150 millions and huge oil resources, Nigeria should have been the “success story” from the outset. 

The country has rather attracted the attention of the world for all bad and wrong reasons: the Biafra war in the 1960s, numerous military coups and dictatorship, tension between different groups that claim sectarian and religious affinity like Boko Haram, Niger Delta and so on. One wonders what has gone wrong with Nigeria with so much potential but nothing to show for it.

The monumental failure of Nigeria as a nation-state is beyond anyone´s doubt. The state has not lived up to its  missions of creating a climate of peace/security, prosperity, development, democracy, national identity by providing equal rights and opportunities for all citizens of the nation, no matter sex, ethnicity ,etc. The question is whether the state of Nigeria has ever had the will, ambition and aspiration to realize its full potential. I doubt it.

It is probably as the political scientist Claude Ake once wrote: it is not so much about failure because genuine democracy and development has never even been on the agenda at all. The resources of the state have been embezzled by most of the leaders after independence. The politics of the belly has been the order of the day. 

Corruption has also been endemic in all sectors of the Nigerian society. A country that is so rich in oil resources continues to import refined oil from other countries despite the millions of barrels of crude oil that leaves Nigeria´s shore on a daily basis. 

The disenchantment and disfranchisement of the population has been exasperated even more by the lack of any fair distribution of wealth along the years. The sense of belonging on the basis of citizenship has never existed. People identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, Christians, Igbos, Yorubas, and Hausas, etc. 

The current president with the funny name Good Luck Jonathan seems to be trying to consolidate the power of the state in order to provide basic human needs for its citizens. His wife is called patience and this fellow really needs all luck and patience on earth to finally change things in Nigeria for the better. I want to see a Nigeria that we all can believe in and look up to in the African Continent because South Africa is betraying humanity us as usual. 

 The Nigerian economy has started moving into the right direction and many exiled Nigerians are returning home as never before as they eventually see some lights in the tunnel. Boko Haram remains to be the greatest threat for now but widespread unemployment and poverty are the most dangerous ones not only for Nigeria but for the whole world.   

Revolution united

I saw a documentary called  "Revolution united" on Aljazeera the other day. It was  about the Japanese “Red Army”. Japanese young men and women had joined the front for the liberation of Palestine and gone to Israel where they participated in the bombing of an airplane in 1972.


27 people died in this action and two Japanese Red Army members are among the dead. A third one was captured alive and sentenced to a long time jail sentence in Israel. He was eventually freed in an exchange of prisoners between the front for the liberation of Palestine and Israel. He still lives in the Middle East in Lebanon where he is seen as a national hero.

Another Japanese citizen who was among the original founders of the group was sentenced to 26 years imprisonment for her alleged involvement of an attack on French embassy in Holland in the early 1970s. Many other Japanese citizens were also handed long jail sentences for having stayed in Lebanon “illegally”.

I wonder what drove people from the Far East to join the Palestine cause. Many other nationalities have also fought for causes that are not of their immediate concerns. These individuals that transcend their own self-cantered, local, national, cultural and other boundaries are mesmerizing.

The Japanese group started organizing themselves first against the increasing union fee at their university. They were also demonstrating against the involvement of “an Imperialist Japan” in indo-china and its support for the USA in the Vietnam War.

Making local issues into a national one is a grand task in itself but going from a local student issue to an internationalism of Palestine liberation is a different matter. It is always regrettable when civilian lives are taken in the name of “a revolution” or “radical change” but resurrection to violence and revolutionary movements seems to be very characterizing of the 1970s. The military coup in Chile in 1973, the Ethiopian revolution that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and the Iranian revolution of 1979 are just some examples of that remarkable decade when I was supposed to have been brought to this world.

Terrorism is probably the term that has been used extensively to explain all sorts of “violent resistance” these days. The sad association of Islam with that term shows how media always selects to focus on violence that erupts from other regions and religions than the occident.

The memories of radical groups from Germany and Japan from the 1970s may have been blurred but barely forgotten. Historical conditioning is perhaps in favour of those who hold the economic and political power in the world but the very creation of the state of Israel is the product of “terrorism” too. So it is a question of definition about what constitutes terrorism and who commits it.

I have always felt that an individual can make a difference in peoples lives whether a positive or a negative one. I do not like though feeling guilty for doing too little to bring about a change in the right direction in the fight against poverty, insecurity and injustice in the world. I am not guilty of being a critical citizen of the world. I am not an innocent anthropologist either. I am just a bewildered man who keeps wondering and questioning……………..

Swedish neutrality literally means Swedish hypocrisy

I do not understand what it means to be “a neutral country” as Sweden claims to be. There is nothing called “neutrality” in my vocabulary because human relationships are based on “subjectivity” and not “objectivity” as many baldly claim. You are either for racism/Nazism or against it. How could one stand by and look indifferently when the world around you is falling apart as never before. There is no any middle way here. You should take a side on issues like this and fight against it wherever the bell for freedom rings.

Swedish history is full of indifference and hypocrisy. Sweden managed to avoid a direct involvement both in the first and second world war. The country might not have been involved in colonialism and slave trade directly but did of course benefit from that inhuman treatment of coloured people. God knows the number of people who perished because of colonialism and slavery but a moderate estimation is 50 million. This is tantamount to genocide.

500 years of western domination across the world has cost the lives of 500 million people. 10 million in Congo alone! No western leader has yet faced trial for these crimes against humanity. Impunity is their trademark as they control the” international criminal court”.

Sweden allowed Nazi German soldiers to go through its territory on the way to Norway during the Second World War. It also deported a number of refugees from the Baltic States to the despotic Soviet Union after the war. Individual Swedes took their own initiatives and fought against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union alongside fellow Danish, Norwegian and Finnish people.

The Swedish state/government was passive for most of the last century and never stood up against genocide/holocaust/extermination/pogrom. It was first during the 1960s when Olof Palme became the prime minister that he put Sweden on the international map after condemning the USA for its barbaric war in Vietnam. This single incident though can not make Sweden a self-gratifying “moral superpower” as it wrongly is perceived.

Sweden still keeps hundreds of refugees in custody for months and in some cases up to a year before deportation. It deported two Egyptians to Egypt a decade ago. The two guys were arrested upon arrival in Cairo, tortured and imprisoned for years. The then Swedish government of Göran Persson “was promised” by the dictator Hosni Mubarak that nothing was going to happen the two guys. You might call this blunder a blue-eyed naivety of unmatched magnitude but Sweden has not got the guts to tell Africans what is best for them as long as it keeps its double standards on course. The track record of western countries on human rights violations speaks for itself and does not call a genius mind to grasp the fallacy here. Guantanamo, Abu Ghrabi and Bahram are just a few examples of “the global age” under the banner of “restoring hope” or “imposing universal values of human rights and democracy”.

The west in general and Sweden in particular needs to set its house in order first before imposing the Swedish/western values of complacency, neutrality and indifference on other folks. Universal universalism is not euro-centric universalism which emphasizes the values of decadence, aggression, inferiority/superiority complex and impunity. We need the respect for human rights and the rule of law and democracy that accommodates everyone in Sweden as much as in many  other parts of the world.