Rastafari Speaks Interactive

Michael Jackson - a man trapped behind a mask

By Yuri Prasad
June 30, 2009 - socialistworker.co.uk

Despite his huge popularity, Michael Jackson embodied the contradictions of racism in the music industry

The words to Nina Simone’s song Young, Gifted and Black could have been written especially for the Jackson Five. When the group’s first single, I Want You Back, smashed its way to the top of the pop charts in 1969 the brothers seemed to some to epitomise the desire for black pride that emerged out of the movement for civil rights.

The Jacksons combined street credibility – a kind of ghetto chic derived from their working class upbringing in Indiana – with wholesome respectability. They dressed sharp, but not so sharp they couldn’t be copied, and the group wore their hair in the “natural” Afro style.

Review - From Colonization to Globalization: Difference or Repetition?

By Rosemary Ekosso
May 01, 2009 - ekosso.com

Paper by Martial Frindethie

Note: the full text of the paper is available at the link provided at the end of this posting, which is only a review of the paper.

This paper is quite possibly one of the most startling I have read in a while. That so much information is available, and that people may not be privy to it, is one of the tragedies of humanity. We have the wherewithal to save ourselves and yet we do not.

Frindethie's paper is largely about his reading of the recent history of Côte d'Ivoire. The tone is one of someone in a towering rage at the French government and French interest groups. For this reason, it will be of particular interest to Francophone Africa. And although Frindethie comes across as a very, very angry man, his tone shifting from sardonic to downright bitter, this is a well-researched philippic. In my view, almost none of the people mentioned in the paper come out smelling of roses, to say the least. Certainly not the French government or French business interests in Africa. Not Kofi Anan. And most certainly not Alassane Ouattara, nor his wife the Frenchwoman Dominique Nouvian Folleroux, described as a "femme fatale" by Frindethie. On the strength of the evidence, one is inclined to agree.

Nothing Can Be Improvised in Haiti, Fidel Castro

By Fidel Castro Ruz
May 24, 2009
Reflections of Fidel

Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.

According to the report, Clinton accompanied the Secretary General on a two-day official visit to Haiti on March last in order to support the development program that had been designed by the government of Port of Prince, aimed at awakening the lethargic Haitian economy.

The report stated that the ex president had maintained a remarkable philanthropic commitment with the Caribbean nation through the Clinton Global Initiative.

Media fabrications impede economic recovery efforts

By Dambudzo Muparanga
May 23, 2009, The Herald

ONE can make out a pattern when it comes to the popularity of the Zimbabwe Government in the West before the Land Reform Programme and after its inception.

The reason for this is not because the Government did something out of this world, the Government – all things considered – did a good thing for its people.

The only unfortunate thing is that in today’s world those with the money control the flow of information and if anyone crosses their path the wolves are released within seconds.

Such is the case with Zimbabwe.

Swine flu exposes West's hypocrisy

By Henry Harry Makowa
May 23, 2009, The Herald

WITH the current swine flu plague hitting Mexico and now almost all parts of the world, one cannot help but wonder what international outcry would have been constructed had the deadly flu originated in Zimbabwe.

It is more important to understand this fact in light of and in so far as Zimbabweans are still very much aware of the condemnation and criminal discrimination against its citizens over the cholera outbreak that rocked the country towards the end of December 2008.

What is interesting about the swine flu in Mexico is that it has produced two outcomes totally opposite to how Zimbabwe was treated over the cholera.

Some Thoughts about Torture. And Mr. Obama

By William Blum
May 05, 2009
www.killinghope.org

Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W. Bush said "The United States does not torture", everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said "The United States does not torture",(1) it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians.

When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has "banned torture", this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only "in any armed conflict".(2) What about in a "counter-terrorism" environment? And the new administration has not categorically banned the outsourcing of torture, such as renditions, the sole purpose of which is to kidnap people and send them to a country to be tortured. Moreover, what do we know of all the CIA secret prisons, the gulag extending from Poland to the island of Diego Garcia?

What is Canada Doing in Haiti?

The "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti": Humanist Peacekeeping or...?

By Jean Saint-Vil
April 20, 2009
globalresearch.ca

On Sussex Drive in Ottawa, just a few steps away from the enormous US embassy, stands the Peacekeeping Monument. The structure titled "Reconciliation" was erected to honour the more than 125,000 Canadians who have served in United Nations peacekeeping forces since 1947. The current article documents one particular instance –the February 2004 intervention in Haiti - where the historical record conflicts with the "good peacekeeper" narrative communicated by the Canadian government, reiterated by the corporate media, and represented by "Reconciliation."

Seeing themselves as a generous people, most Canadians also consider that their noble ideals are reflected in the foreign policy of their government. The importance of nurturing this positive image both at home and abroad is well ingrained in the national psyche and, every now and again, surveys are conducted to confirm its resilience.[1]

Honouring a Legacy of Imperialism, Racism and Oppression

By Nkrumah Lucien
April 24, 2009

The task of building a national consciousness out of two groups - on the one hand, descendants and beneficiaries of an exploitative class or group and on the other hand, the largely disenfranchised majority descending from the exploited group - is no easy task. This, perhaps, explains but does not excuse the failure since St. Lucia’s independence to seriously undertake this task. It may be that those who hold and juggle political power have neither the desire nor the required consciousness to embark upon such a project but there have been many occasions when the call for such to be done has been ignored. Instead, a superficial unity is established and called a national consciousness, to which all are expected to subscribe and to which only those who are ignorant of the continuation of many of colonialism's contradictions truly subscribe. The continued failure to do the necessary re-education, reparations and reconciliation to make this possible keeps us vulnerable to the agendas and indiscretions of those who still maintain a hold culturally and otherwise on our societies.

The 'Roots' of Somalia Piracy

Analysis: Somalia Piracy Began in Response to Illegal Fishing and Toxic Dumping by Western Ships off Somali Coast

April 14, 2009
democracynow.org

Rush Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama vowed an international crackdown to halt piracy off the coast of Somalia Monday soon after the freeing of US cargo ship captain Richard Phillips, who had been held hostage by Somali pirates since last Wednesday. Three Somali pirates were killed in the US operation.

While some military analysts are considering attacks on pirate bases inside Somalia in addition to expanding US Navy gunships along the Somali coastline, others are strongly opposed to a land invasion. US Congress member Donald Payne of New Jersey made a brief visit to the Somali capital of Mogadishu Monday and said piracy was, quote, a "symptom of the decades of instability." His plane was targeted by mortar fire as he was leaving Somalia, soon after a pirate vowed revenge against the United States for killing his men.

The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized

Canada's "Democracy Promotion" in Venezuela

By Anthony Fenton
April 7th 2009
The Dominion

Canada's foreign policy, as that country which is closer geographically, economically, and militarily with the US than any other, has long been circumscribed by the whims of the world's lone Superpower.

Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.