09/01/2024
07/01/2024
France in Africa: 2023 > 2024
FRANCE - AFRICA RELATIONS
French diplomacy in Africa weakened considerably in 2023 as former allies steered their foreign policies elsewhere in the wake of military coups and general political upheaval. A new law making it harder for foreigners to immigrate to France has compounded matters.
06/01/2024
04/01/2024
2024: Biggest election year
Year of elections has Africa poised for political shake-up in 2024
Russia, India, the UK, the USA...
But also a third of Africa will head to the polls in 2024, with at major issues on the line in at least 18 countries gearing up for an election year.
These include coup-hit Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso – if the junta leaders in those countries stay true to their word.
From Algeria to South Africa, RFI looks at the main polls to watch:
>> Read from here: https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20240103-year-of-elections-has-africa-poised-for-political-shake-up-in-2024
02/01/2024
Happy new year everyone
I read my posts from the previous years, and must say I'm not as optimistic this time...
But I do wish everyone I know, everyone alive really, the best possible year.
My heart is especially thankful for the kindness of strangers.
To more kindness in 2024, and less obsession with selfish profits, individualism and conflicts.
29/12/2023
South Africa launches genocide case against Israel
South Africa launches genocide case against Israel at UN's top court
South Africa said it had approached the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) under the Geneva convention with respect to acts committed by Israel in Gaza.
In a statement, South Africa said it was ‘“gravely concerned with the plight of civilians” caught in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip “due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants.”
It said there were “ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes” being committed as well as “reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide” in the Palestinian territory.
An application in this regard was filed before the court on 29 December 2023 in which the court is requested to declare on an urgent basis that Israel is in breach of its obligations in terms of the genocide convention, should immediately cease all acts and measures in breach of those obligations and take a number of related actions.
It said South Africa “condemns all violence and attacks against all civilians, including Israelis”, adding that it had continuously called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and for talks to resume “that will end the violence arising from the continued belligerent occupation of Palestine”.
Cheikh Anta Diop centenary
Senegal celebrates pioneer of African history Cheikh Anta Diop
This 29 December marks the 100th birthday of one of the most influential African scholars of the 20th century: Cheikh Anta Diop, who pioneered a new understanding of the continent's place in history and left an enduring legacy in his native Senegal and beyond.
RFI - Issued on:
A specialist in nuclear physics as well as a passionate linguist, anthropologist and historian, the Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop laid the foundation for a rewriting of African history, beyond colonial prejudices.
As an Egyptologist, he studied the African roots of ancient Egypt, defending and proving Africa's fundamental place in the history of humanity, and its contribution to other great civilisations.
"Egypt is to the rest of black Africa what Greece and Rome are to the western world,” he notably wrote.
A politician in later life, he was a fervent advocate of Pan-Africanism and a decided opponent of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal's first president after independence and another influential cultural theorist.
Diop's works have influenced generations, and continue to inspire the development of African-centred scholarship and the Pan-African movement.
A polymath pioneer
Born in 1923 in the village of Thieytou, about a hundred kilometres east of Dakar, Diop came from a Wolof family of aristocratic origin.
From 1946, Diop went to study in Paris. He first chose physics and chemistry before turning to philosophy and history.
He read the canon of European thinkers extensively, yet his thesis addressed "precolonial black Africa" and the "cultural unity of black Africa".
From that point on he worked to unskew European-centric views and cultivate Afrocentrism.
He opened the first radiocarbon dating laboratory in Africa to study historical documents from Ancient Egypt, and gathered evidence that the Pharaonic civilisation was black African.
When Senegal became one of the first countries to declare independence from the French Empire in 1960, Diop returned home and dedicated the following decades to teaching, research and politics.
Politically, he became a nationalist and an advocate for African federalism.
African history reimagined
A prolific writer, Diop authored many works on the past – and future – of Africa, including his influential Negro Nations and Culture (published in 1954) and The African Origin of Civilisation: Myth or Reality (1974).
He notably worked on the writing of a "General History of Africa" for Unesco.
But if his work was well received right away in Africa, in Europe, some scholars accused his multidisciplinary approach of veering into chaos and political activism.
Later research has added weight to many of his theories, while academics continue to debate others.
Yet most agree that Diop played a foundational role in revolutionising the study of African civilisations and exposing cultural bias in much of the scholarship previously accepted as scientific truth.
Celebrations
After his death in Dakar in 1986, Senegal’s main university took his name.
The Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar is celebrating its namesake's centenary from 21 to 30 December 2023, around the theme of "rebuilding bold thought for Africa".
Speaking to RFI on the 30th anniversary of Diop’s passing in 2016, writer and historian Iba Der Thiam, a former minister of education and vice-president of Senegal's lower house of parliament, remembered him as "one of the most illustrious Africans who has undoubtedly marked future generations and the intellectual elite as a fighter".
Thanks to Diop's work, he said, African elites and populations gained "the awareness of their identity", and above all "the pride of belonging to a continent whose role, in the evolution of the world, has been irreplaceable".
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Read here: https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20231229-senegal-celebrates-pioneer-of-african-history-cheikh-anta-diop
26/12/2023
Gaza: update on 26 December 2023
Displaced Gazans have little space left to go, UN says, while children risk dying of hunger
Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have followed Israeli army evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated enclave, a UN humanitarian team leader said.
26 Dec. 2023
Gemma Connell, team leader for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), deployed in Gaza for several weeks now, described what she called a "human chess board" in which thousands of people, displaced many times already, are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe.
"People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe," said Connell, who on Monday visited the Deir al-Balah neighbourhood in central Gaza.
"I've spoken to many people. There's so little space left here in Rafah that people just don't know where they will go and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there's an evacuation order somewhere."
"People flee that area into another area. But they're not safe there," added Connell.
An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and crowded into shelters or makeshift tents in the winter cold, even as the fighting comes ever closer.
'No safe place in Gaza'
Connell also described the death of a 9-year-old boy named Ahmed in al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip, where many of the wounded in Israeli airstrikes overnight were brought and where she spent around 1-1/2 hours.
"He was not in an area under an evacuation order, he was in an area that was supposed to be safe. There is no safe place in Gaza," she said, adding that new airstrikes took place when she was at the hospital and she witnessed wounded being brought in.
She shared the text of a notification from the Israeli military urging residents of at least half-a-dozen central Gazan neighbourhoods to evacuate on Friday.
It says the Israel Defence Forces will soon be operating in their neighbourhood and urges them to evacuate "temporarily and move to shelters" in Deir al-Balah.
The army spokesperson told Reuters: "The IDF will act against Hamas wherever it operates, with full commitment to international law, while distinguishing between terrorists and civilians, and taking all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians."
US officials have repeatedly said they expect Israel to scale down its operations to a more low-intensity phase of more targeted and surgical operations.
However, Israeli operations have intensified.
Christmas Eve proved to be one of the deadliest nights in the 11-week-old war between Israel and Hamas, as Palestinian health officials in Gaza said Israeli airstrikes in central and southern Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians, bringing the death toll to nearly 20,700.
'Real hunger'
Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people are enduring dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.
"Now there is real hunger," said Nour Ismail, who was waiting for food to be distributed in the southern city of Rafah.
"My children are dying of hunger."
WHO staff also visited a hospital treating victims of the strikes and "heard harrowing accounts" from health workers and victims, said the agency's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described the fate of a nine-year-old being treated who was expected to die.
"He was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up," he said.
No peace 'until Hamas destroyed'
As Palestinians mourned their losses, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up the fight against Hamas militants until their rulers are "destroyed" and Palestinian society is "de-radicalised".
Netanyahu told Likud party members on Monday that he was ready to support the voluntary migration of civilians out of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The cross-border attack on 7 October 2023 killed 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139, according to the final Israeli count.
And 240 people were abducted.
(With newswires)
25/12/2023
Like a 25 December...
"The whole world is celebrating Christmas this year but not Bethlehem, not the birthplace of our lord Jesus Christ," said the Palestinian minister of tourism, Rula Ma'ayah.
This Sunday, he highlighted the calm at the epicentre of the festival due to the conflict in Gaza.
"Bethlehem is celebrating Christmas with sadness and sorrow because of what’s happening in Gaza and in all the West Bank, all Palestinian Territories.
“Like other years, we used to celebrate Christmas with joy and happiness with scouts and people coming from all Palestinian governorates and tourists from all over the world.
"Unfortunately this year, we’re receiving Christmas without tourists from the world and without Palestinians from other governorates because of the war on Gaza.”
Most years Bethlehem basks in its renown as the birthplace of Jesus. Pilgrims usually flock to the reputed location of the stable where he spent his first hours in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.
But with Israel's campaign in Gaza having killed more than 20,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, mourning has enveloped the area.
“Unfortunately this year, we’re receiving Christmas without tourists from around the world and without Palestinians from other governorates because of the war on Gaza,” lamented Ma’ayah.
(With newswires)
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