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: 29/12/2023 - 09:04

By:Melissa Chemam with RFI

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".

Cheikh Anta Diop as a university student in Paris in the late 1940s. 

© Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

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

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.

RFI

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) 

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)

Le centre culturel de La Courneuve sur Africolor

 

Quelques mots d'un member de l'équipe du centre culturel de La Courneuve, Houdremont, sur le festival de musique Africolor et le contexte de répression de l'immigration en ce moment en France :

Ah! Kwantou: Ghanaian French music live!

 

Ah! Kwantou:

Small clip from a great gig at Africolor

A short clip from the great concert by Ah! Kwantou at Africolor, in La Courneuve, France, on 22 Dec. 2023. More soon!

MC Abdul from Palestine - 'Shouting At The Wall'

 

A clip from this song was sent to me via social media.

It's actually been recorded a few years ago, in Gaza. But how relevant!! 

MC Abdul - 'Shouting At The Wall'

Look at this kid... incredible!!

🇵🇸 15 y/o rapper from Palestine 🎤 Spreading peace, love & unity through music.

MC Abdul - 'Palestine' [FREEVERSE]

MC Abdul - 'Let It Rain'

(sampling the Fugees's 'Ready or Not')

A little more about Abdul in this video from 2021: 

WATCH: Brave 13-year-old boy
raps about Palestine war!

11-Year-Old Palestinian Rapper Uses Music to Share Life in Gaza | NowThis (2020)

His name is Abdul-Rahman al-Shantti.

Born on September 14, 2008, he's known professionally as MC Abdul or MCA Abdul.

The Palestinian rapper from Gaza, Palestine "gained popularity when he sang a rap about freedom, in front of his school in Gaza which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media." 

Subsequently, as of August 2023, his videos for "Shouting At The Wall" and "Palestine" have received more then 930,000 views and 700,000 views, respectively, on YouTube alone.

He says his idol is Eminem...

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His most recent video:

MC Abdul - 'The Pen & The Sword'

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Thanks Mark for sharing a first clip... 

On our types of online socialisation

 

 Dear friends, readers, newcomers,

I hope this message finds you well.

This year hasn’t been good for much problems, not for the climate, not for peace, not for us, journalists, and not for freedom of expression in general.

One of the issue worsening is the way we're owned by our social media.

You may have seen what happened on Twitter (I won't use the CEO's dark rebranding...).

I certainly have… I mean, for instance, how the CEO criticised the German government for participating in sea rescue operations, posted photos of himself at the Mexican border, and... supported infamous antisemitic French author Alain Soral...

If not, all you need is here on AP, on Bloomberg, and here on Forbes... and on Musk's own unbearable feed!

More recently, Meta started censuring post, and the European Union announced "formal infringement proceedings" against X after identifying suspect posts related to the war between Israel and Hamas: 

https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20231219-eu-launches-proceedings-against-x-over-israel-hamas-disinformation

It is the first such move against a major online platform under a new EU law designed to combat disinformation and hate speech.

I cannot stand the idea of serving as a tiny pawn in his empire, can you?

*

As a journalist, reporter and writer, I spent an enormous amount of time on Twitter in the past decades, before it was changed, just doing my job: sharing relevant information for free, completed by art, music, films, beauty... created by people I admire and respect for their values.

I can no longer do that without feeling used and reduced to silence, as the algorithm favours the richest man of the world's opinion, while pushing us out. All that by claiming he defends "free speech".

I feel really powerless posting on it, and on social media in general...Serious media have been robbed of all effects. Disinformation, opinions, and hatred have taken all space, thus power. This is the era we live in.

This week now, disinformation and lies about Palestine have inundated all these networks…

All over the world, press freedom is attacked, reduced or threatened. Online networks help to find sources, information, contacts, etc.

But not if we have to sell our souls to the devil for it...

Facebook, Instagram and Thread - as Meta - are not much better, to be honest, I won't start listing all the reasons why, but basically they just encourage self-promotion and competition. While stealing our data! Remember Cambridge Analytica?

Here is an excellent piece on Meta's policy towards politics:

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/30/meta-censorship-policy-dangerous-organizations/

I also tried Mastodon and Post but not much happened there...

If I'm writing to you, it is because I've interacted with you on Twitter at some point or for some of you daily. I now suffer there...

There are alternatives!

Here are a few.

Hope to see you there.

>> BlueSky, and other similar networks

It looks and feels like Twitter at the beginning… 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-twitter-alternative/

Twitter, or as it's now known, X, isn't the same as it used to be. Here are the best Twitter alternatives if you're looking to leave the social media site.

My account on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/melissaontheroad.bsky.social

The one on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@melissaontheroad

>> Substack

Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. 

But it's also much more than that, and allows space for communication and networking. 

Here's my newsletter:

https://substack.com/@melissaontheroad?utm_source=profile-page 

Melissa Chemam

SUBSTACK.COM/@MELISSAONTHEROAD

Reporter/Writer on African affairs, migrations, culture, Europe/UK/France, interested in rewriting cultural narratives. 

I'm also the author of the book 'Out of the Comfort Zone', about Britain's music, art, multiculturalism & activism, digging into the ghosts of its colonial past.

There are plenty of other newsletters there, of course! And spaces to chat, exchange, discuss, correspond... 

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Palestine: Art centres, artists and messages

These types of articles are multiplying:

'More Than 1,000 Artists Boycott Bristol’s Arnolfini Center Amid Palestine Censorship Controversy'

In an open letter, artists are pledging to withdraw from working with Arnolfini Arts, following their censorship of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival in December. 

Here are some key points from the letter:

"Their actions are a terrible mistake, and a cowardly move toward a British arts ecology that has no genuine space for discussion, debate or dissent. 

We cannot let the arts in this country be censored and limited by fear, pressure or lack of moral leadership. Palestinian freedom of expression must be equal and protected. 

We welcome @icalondon @sitegallery @wysing.arts.centre who have all had the courage and ethical backbone to stand up and platform Palestinian voices and arts and demand a ceasefire."

- 

This is not the Arnolfini I know. 

We need an explanation...

Just last year I was part of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival there with Ken Loach and many great activists... And the event took place at Arnolfini, the international art centre of Bristol.

The event was titled 'Boycott', how ironic...

'Boycott': film + discussion at the Bristol Palestine Film Festival, Dec. 2022

Something must have turned wrong...

As the article reports, now: 

More than 1,000 artists across the cultural field—including Ben Rivers, Brian Eno, Adham Faramawy, and Tai Shani—have signed a new open letter that accuses Bristol’s Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts of “censorship of Palestinian culture,” after the institution canceled two events that were part of the city’s Palestine Film Festival. 

The signatories vow to no longer work with the Arnolfini or engage with its events and urge their peers in the field to join the boycott.

In November, the Arnolfini cancelled a screening of Farha (2021), a coming-of-age story set during the Nakba, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine war, by Jordanian-Palestinian director Darin J. Sallam.

The screening was set to be followed by a Q&A with the Palestinian writer and doctor Ghada Karmi. The center was also scheduled to host a poetry reading headlined by the rapper and activist Lowkey.

The screening of Farha will now be hosted at the cinema & arts charity Watershed, while the poetry event will take place at the department store and arts hub Sparks Bristol.

In Bristol, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja, writers Alice Oswald, Nikesh Shukla, Shon Faye, Travis Alabanza and Rachel Holmes are among many artists who have written a letter accusing the iconic Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts of “censorship of Palestinian culture”. 

As listed here: https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/category/all/

The artists vow to take collective action and urge other artists and audiences to join them, saying: 

“We must, reluctantly, refuse cooperation with the arts centre and will not participate in any of its events until Arnolfini publicly commits to consistently uphold freedom of expression, with no exception for Palestine, and genuinely engages with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused”.

They added:

“We want to make it clear that we stand fully behind workers at Arnolfini who’ve had no say in this. Our message is addressed to those in the management who made this damaging decision; the signatories of this letter expect better integrity, transparency and cultural leadership from Arnolfini.”

The letter continues: “Until the Arnolfini leadership publicly commits to consistently uphold freedom of expression, with no exception for Palestine, and genuinely engages with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused, we must, reluctantly, refuse cooperation with the arts center and will not participate in any of its events.”

Finally, Bristol artist and composer Nik Rawlings, who was in talks with the gallery to undertake a residency at Arnolfini, announced that they are no longer willing to do so. 

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I hope we get to hear what really happened soon for these events to be cancelled.

We need to work with the venue for this to never happen again.

-

Melissa Chemam

Journalist & Art Writer 

@ RFI English, New Arab, ART UK...

Newsletter: https://melissa.substack.com/

Site: https://sites.google.com/view/melissachemam

Nu Barreto's new exhibition

 

Art exhibition: 'Silhouettes Parfaites' - Nu Barreto, artist from Bissau Guinea - Currently at Galerie Obadia, Paris

'Silhouettes Parfaites'

Little clip: