Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

[Emperah]

Just seconds after Hosni Mubarak resigned, African commentators started tweeting. "After #egypt Is the rest of #africa listening and watching? Support the protestors in #gabon #sudan #libya #algeria #cameroon #uganda ...." wrote Emeka Okafor, author of the Timbuktu Chronicles blog. Ferial Haffajee, editor of South Africa's City Press newspaper remembered the last time she'd seen something so moving: When Nelson Mandela walked out of prison exactly 21 years ago today. Then, she promptly asked, "So, if Mubarak's gone, why not Gbagbo and Mugabe too?"

Egypt is an African country, too. And while the protests have rocked the Arab world, unsettling autocrats from Algiers to Riyadh, it has equally shaken the ground under Africa's strongmen. Other tweeters report that Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is censoring the news of Egypt's protests. In Gabon, protesters took to the streets bearing banners that read, "In Tunisia, Ben Ali is gone. In Gabon, we've still got Ali Ben," (Ali Ben being a reference to president Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of the former strongman Ali Bongo). As protests broke out in Algiers today, the headlines read, "Waiting for the revolution in Algeria."

Across the continent, Mubarak's fall isn't being read as the end of the Middle Eastern autocrats. It's being read as the end of autocrats. Period. The people power that ousted Mubarak today has not been witnessed on the streets of Nairobi or Lagos or Kinshasa since the end of colonialism. Yet many of the presidents in power are the same men (or their sons) who took power back then.

Like Egyptians, the Congolese, Nigerians, Eritreans, Senegalese, Angolans … they know what their regimes are like. They mock them, curse them, and sometimes fear them. But with each day of the Egyptian protests, there was a growing sense that they can also defeat them. As one Zimbabwean tweeter wrote today, "Next time you hear a dictator say he is not going, know that if you push hard enough they will go. #Zimbabwe #Egypt."

[Magician]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

The problem with some of the countries listed is that
1. The military will side with the ruler and not the people and squash the protest.
2. The people are unified by ethnic background and not citizenship and the ruler can play one group against another.

So I wouldn't expect everybody to follow fashion and sweep out shop like Egypt even though I'm sure there are many people in many countries that would like to see their ruler outsted.

[jah_yout]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

you notice the western press rarely says "africa" when covering egypt...
it's all "arab" or "middle-east"...

[Emperah]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

They've done their best to take egypt out of Africa, some yutes nuh tink seh egypt inna Africa when yuh ahx dem.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

To all,
I will repeat this as often as stories of uprisings and "revolutions" in Africa and elsewhere are posted in these fora.

Nothing changes for the poor and working people of a country if all that is changed is the person who is at the head of a corrupt multi-party electoral form and a Western style capitalist economy in which the top 10% possess most of the wealth of a country.

If it is the political parties that choose the candidates to begin with, then those candidates will always serve the needs and desires of the parties which are usually bought off /bribed and controlled by the big money people.

If you do not have true democracy in which the people, unaffiliated with any party are the ones who choose their representatives from amongst themselves and then are in constant communication with these elected officials so that they serve the needs of the constituency, then you will have no real change.


A case in point: the PEOPLE of Egypt are against the U.S brokered "peace" deal between Israel and Egypt because they support their Palestinean brothers and sisters.

The spokesperson for the Egyptian armed forces has already announced that Egypt would honor the agreements established by a dictator (Mubarak) with the criminal state of Israel.
This is totally undemocratic. It is not what the people want but what the people at the top of the Egyptian hierarchy want because the U.S bribes them to do what the U.S. wants.

So... watch Tunisia, watch Egypt and watch any other country in which the people rise up and remove a hated dictator and see if they don't just replace one dictator with another, keep the dictatorship of the dollar (capitalism) that impoverishes so many and wind up with things being much the same as before.

Getting rid of a single man, a single dictator is the easy part.
Changing the electoral and economic systems to democratic forms is the tough part that probably none of these countries will be able to accomplish .

The past is prologue because most people, most modern societies fail to learn from history and so are doomed to repeat it.

[Emperah]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

Mi agree wid yuh, but tell me which country on earth where the ppl pick their own leaders?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: dahJahPawtTwo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mi agree wid yuh, but tell me which country on earth where the ppl pick their own leaders? </div></div>


dJPT,

That's my point.
Most countries are republics and not democracies.

Democracies are systems where each citizen takes part in each decision of government but this is not practical in large populations so we establish REPUBLICS.

Republics are systems where the people elect a person to represent them full time in the government while the people go about their daily lives.

The problem comes in when political parties become the means through which candidates are selected and thereby the democratic representation is ended.

When a political party nominates the candidate for whom you get to vote, that candidate owes the people who bribe them (finance their campaigns) or who bribe the party's bosses. The people who elect them (us) and whose interests are supposed to be served have no say in that nominating process.

Once you've spent your two minutes in the voting booth, your say in anything is over and those elected go on to work for those who have given them large amounts of money to do what the money people want.

Do you see what I mean?
That is what every electoral system in every so-called democratic country is like and it
is why we cannot have a representative democracy as we should have and why things cannot and will not change in Egypt, Tunisia or anywhere else such systems are in place.

The dictatorship of money rules everywhere.

[Emperah]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: dahJahPawtTwo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mi agree wid yuh, but tell me which country on earth where the ppl pick their own leaders? </div></div>


The dictatorship of money rules everywhere. </div></div>

Sameting mi seh tuh, de ppl of the so called industrial nations need fi wake up and see that they are also in a dictatorship.

[R_C]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

jc,you didn't answer dahJah's question....

[johnnycakes]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Rollin_Calf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">jc,you didn't answer dahJah's question.... </div></div>


R_C,

There are no countries in which people get to choose their own leaders directly.

In multi-party electoral systems the undemocratic ways begin at the very start of the process (as explained) when the parties select the candidates for whom the electorate gets to vote. They are carefully chosen so as to maintain the sort of structure that the parties and the people who bribe them want. In countries with a capitalist economy it is the capitalists that run the show, control the choice of candidates, get the benefits of the society directed towards them to the detriment of the electorate.

Of course as a fan of the Cuban revolution and their unique electoral system I always offer Poder Popular as the alternative but in the present reality of the unremitting 50 year blockade in order for the revolution their to survive at all it has become necessary for Poder Popular to be altered to a less democratic form.

It would take far too long here for me to detail the evolved shortcomings of what Poder Popular is today, a far less democratic system than what was envisioned during its creation but some fair and Cuban based details of the problems can be had at:

http://www.havanatimes.org/

That said, hopefully when the blockade ends the system can go back to its base and be what it is set up to be and that is a far better system than multi-party electoral systems can ever be under capitalism.


As previously explained many times under Poder Popular at the lowest levels called Municipal Assemblies, the candidates for representatives (deputies) ARE in fact chosen by the people of the district to be represented and no parties are allowed to run slates or campaigns. The elected people meet with their constituencies on an every six-month basis and they all go over what and how the representative did and voice their needs and complaints.

This alone makes Poder Popular what is needed in the now badly corrupted multi-party farces we have for electoral systems.
We in the States are not faced with an implacable and brutal enemy as are the Cubans and most of the economic problems that are corrupting their system would not affect such a more democratic system here.

It would be nice if the U.S would just normalize relations and then we could make a fair assessment of how good or how bad the Cuban systems are.

Finally the unique Poder Popular and the socialist economy in Cuba are constantly evolving to meet problems that arise and even with times as tough as they are, the Cuban people are no where near wanting to throw away what they have achieved and all serious studies of the society show this to be true. I would suspect that most Cubans just do not want to give in to the United States after all these years of struggle.

Once the blockade is lifted they will be voicing their complaints loud and clear and I would think with the easing of the economy and the threat of the United States gone, the government too will ease up on the (often necessary) restrictions and the easing economy will bring about the disappearance of the petty corruption that now afflicts the society.


Sorry if this has gone off on a tangent but I know as soon as I say anything critical about the Cuban systems, I will have a few people making comments that woulld require writing what I have already included in this post.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

Again sorry for going off point but here is a quote that helps explain quite a bit about U.S intentions and the reasons for many restrictions in today's Cuba:

HAVANA TIMES, Nov. 17 — On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro…”The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship….every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.

“Mallory proposed a line of action which…MAKES THE GREATEST INROADS IN DENYING MONEY AND SUPPLIES TO CUBA, TO DECREASE MONETARY AND REAL WAGES , TO BRING ABOUT HUNGER, DESPERATION AND OVERTHROW OF THE GOVERNMENT”.

[Derek]

Re: Africa reacts to the fall of Mubarak

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">you notice the western press rarely says &quot;africa&quot; when covering egypt...
it's all &quot;arab&quot; or &quot;middle-east&quot;... </div></div>

Well, a Lebanese will call an Egyptian African when he wants to insult him.