tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-138066312011-11-23T11:14:14.964-05:00afrika aphukiraMidwiving the Afrikan rebirth. . .
Views of Afrika and the world, on the path to the renaissance, from a social justice and an Afrikan epistemological perspective--uMunthu. Includes specific commentary on Malawi and Sub-Saharan Africa.steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.comBlogger751100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-71512557228742582592011-09-21T10:50:00.000-04:002011-09-21T10:50:05.249-04:00Malawi on International Day of Peace: uMunthu, Education and a Global Paradox
On the surface, it would seem paradoxical that while the rest of the world is today celebrating the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, the air in Malawi is thick with fear, anxiety and a premonition for violence. Last evening in Lilongwe, the capital, hundreds of people were out shopping into the night, creating long check-out lines in shops that normally close early, and are usually steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-42517725520239717402011-07-24T07:39:00.002-04:002011-07-24T11:00:33.332-04:00Their own Worst Enemy? The Paradoxes of African Leadership & the Undermining of the African CauseWednesday July 20th found me at Katoto Teacher Development Centre (TDC), less than a kilometre away from Katoto Freedom Park, ground zero for Mzuzu demonstrations. We had a teacher professional development workshop with 20 educators from Mzuzu City and Mzimba North. Hardly had we started the day when we heard the chants and songs. It was tantalizing.
An hour into our session, one participant steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-22233674013462125192011-05-10T11:41:00.001-04:002011-05-10T11:56:15.831-04:00Reframing the discussion on Malawi’s problems of access to higher education
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With one of the lowest university enrollments in Africa, the debate on who gets access to higher education in Malawi is an incendiary affair. The debate has erupted once again with the announcement of the 2010 intake for the University ofsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-16024519908920980022011-05-09T13:50:00.004-04:002011-05-09T13:52:33.466-04:00Transforming the teaching profession as a national development strategy
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You have probably heard a friend say it, or at least seen it forwarded in emails: ‘If you want to hide important information from an African, put it in a book.’ Another less insulting but blunt expression says when you see a white person riding in a bus or on a train, or waitingsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-44159627696148857772011-05-09T13:36:00.000-04:002011-05-09T13:36:20.602-04:00Women, Gender & Peace: Towards uMunthu and a New MDG EthicThis article appeared in The Nation of Wednesday, September 22, 2010, and also in Pambazuka Newsletter.
Is it a mere coincidence that the 2010 summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) being held this week in New York overlaps with the UN International Day of Peace? Whether it is or is not, that fact alone offers an opportunity to reflect on how the MDGs relate to the promotion of steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-21784197935314162162011-05-09T13:25:00.000-04:002011-05-09T13:25:58.494-04:00Teaching uMunthu for global peace: Reflections on International Day of Peace, 2010Note: This article appeared in the Daily Times of 22 September, 2010. It also appeared in Pambazuka Newsletter, and on AllAfrica.com.
As I was beginning a 7-month period in 2004 studying prospects for peace education in Malawian classrooms, a friend of mine seemed very surprised at the topic of my study. Why peace education? She asked. Has Malawi been at war lately?
I don’t exactly remember howsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-81188169666810576492011-05-09T13:07:00.004-04:002011-05-09T13:10:47.907-04:00Educationist: Career of the Week interview, Weekend Nation (Sat. July 31, 2010)
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The dominant discourse in the study of development is about how much aid developed countries give to developing countries, and very little discussion of how much wealth goes the other way: from developing countries to developed countries. To their credit, African scholars and activists, a handful of politicians, and a few global justice activists make this point, albeit infrequently, with the steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-18233630740665996342010-06-29T05:39:00.002-04:002010-06-29T05:48:56.721-04:00The Vuvuzelization of world football: Ghana & the real story of SA2010With Ghana as the only remaining African team at the ongoing 2010 World Cup, as I write, the question for many people inside and outside Africa has been about the miserable performance of the five other African representatives. The 2010 World Cup was billed as the African World Cup, and hopes were high that a good number of African teams, amongst the six, would do better than in previous World steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-31583779304280695972010-06-07T11:20:00.004-04:002010-06-10T03:33:08.086-04:00Powering a Development Idea: OVOP Prospects in a Malawian Village
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Phrased as “The Power of Nonviolence,” it compelled me to think about the ways in which Nonviolence theory and praxis could be brought to bear in the search for solutions to one of Africa’s most steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-77649195757481412162009-08-06T18:41:00.006-04:002009-08-07T00:29:21.989-04:00Mourning an Inspirational Malawian: Henry Chabwino Malunda, an Obituary <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal.dotm 0 0 1 1100 6274 Michigan State University 52 12 7704 12.0 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-76106565655195292032009-05-17T13:51:00.005-04:002009-05-17T19:29:20.544-04:00On the 50-50 Campaign: Letter to Malawian VotersDear Malawian Voters,On the surface, Malawian women appear poised to transform the political landscape on Tuesday, May 19th, when Malawians go to the polls to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections. For the first time in our country’s 45-year history, a woman is running for president, and two women are running mates on presidential tickets, one of them on the incumbent’s ticket. The steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-60035888248252111482009-04-11T19:12:00.004-04:002009-04-11T19:28:51.879-04:00A Guest is Like Morning Dew[Note: Following the “Last Lecture” given by the late Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch, the Associated Students of Michigan State University (ASMSU), the university’s student government, has invited Michigan State University professors to come up with their own versions of a hypothetical “last lecture.” My lecture, presented below, is the third and last in the series for the 2008steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-47249058947467177282008-11-03T08:53:00.005-05:002008-11-03T10:19:39.722-05:00Auntie Zeituni and Obama’s African BurdenI was still digesting the news of Obama’s Auntie Zeituni, living in the US illegally since 2004, when the doorbell rang. It was after 5pm on Saturday afternoon, and I wasn’t expecting anybody on a cold November day at the onset of the Michigan winter. I went to see who it was, and was greeted by a tall elderly man, in a baseball cap. “I support Obama,” he announced, “and I am here to ask you to steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-88635090744213262472008-09-21T04:16:00.003-04:002008-09-21T04:21:55.165-04:00Peace Studies and ‘Africa’: International Day of Peace ReflectionsWhen I stumbled upon peace studies as an academic discipline in 2003, I saw the myriad questions I had developed over a life time, some of which I was unaware of, begin to gel into an intelligible, coherent pursuit. I wondered why it had taken me five years into graduate school to learn of the existence of peace studies as a discipline. And had it not been for a dissertation research fellowship, steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-38910151873155424712008-07-24T17:21:00.004-04:002008-07-24T18:54:13.938-04:00Son of the Soil? Pan-Africanism & Third World Prospects in a Possible Obama PresidencyThe exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-51297648064321741402008-07-19T22:24:00.004-04:002008-07-19T22:31:20.475-04:00Visiting Hungary, Recalling Malawi’s Recent History Unsure as to how much English the average Hungarian speaks, I prepare for my 2008 Global Voices Citizen Media Summit trip to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, by reading up on the country and the language. I start by googling two Hungarian playwrights, Körnel Hámvai and Pál Békés whom I got to know in 1997 as fellow Honorary Fellows of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-79421570118034478502008-07-06T15:46:00.004-04:002008-07-06T16:09:54.485-04:00uMunthu, Peace and Education: On Malawi's 44th Independence AnniversaryOne morning at a school near Lake Chirwa in Zomba in 1972, pupils entering their Standard 8 classroom received the shock of their lives. The portrait of then Life President Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda had been defaced. Someone had drawn into the portrait a pair of spectacles, and had written unsavory comments about the then president. The pupils informed the teacher, who informed the school's headsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-90010354041959500592008-05-11T10:40:00.003-04:002008-05-11T10:47:09.193-04:00Foreign Policy Mag's Top 100 IntellectualsThe current issue of Foreign Policy magazine (May/June 2008) has a list of what the magazine says are the top 100 public intellectuals living today. The subjective nature of the definition of "public intellectual", and the names of people I notice included, and left out, is enough to make me not take this exercise seriously.But some of the people included are indeed inspirational to many people, steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-2827006978720975542008-04-13T00:52:00.009-04:002008-04-13T14:28:38.612-04:00Beneath Obama’s rebuke of Jeremiah Wright: Is a new global consciousness afoot?When I learned that the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright was going to give a speech at Michigan State University on February 7th, I spread the word to friends and colleagues I knew would love to hear Barack Obama’s pastor speak. Of the half dozen or so people I mentioned his name to, none of them had heard of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, let alone his spiritual connection to Barack Obama. I steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-89158420219072731442008-03-06T16:07:00.001-05:002008-03-07T11:36:53.312-05:00'International Thieves': Western Corruption and the Third World Financing of the Rich Pan-Africa and the Third World are certainly on the move insofar as the west’s colonialist and racist perceptions of African and Third World people are concerned. However there are certain areas in which negative perceptions of African and Third World peoples are deeply entrenched, and will require steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-78412924048896571522008-01-27T14:19:00.001-05:002008-01-27T14:23:35.417-05:00Correction on article titled 'When a Pan-Africanist Library Burns: Kanyama Chiume, 1929-2007'I wish to make a correction regarding the first paragraph of my article on the late Kanyama Chiume, posted on November 27, 2007, titled 'When a Pan-Africanist Library Burns: Kanyama Chiume, 1929-2007'. In the article I wrote that according to a response I had received to my query on Nyasanet about Mr. steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-8901213044983362042008-01-02T19:53:00.000-05:002008-01-03T13:24:37.448-05:00Building human libraries: Dr. wa Mutharika, food security and the Malawian elderlyThe Nation newspaper in Malawi reports that its readers have voted the country's president, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, as the 'Nation Achiever' for the year 2007. Gracian Tukula, Editor of the Nation on Sunday, explains that the award is determined after a process that involves selecting a theme for that year, sending steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-30458525611373280192007-12-14T10:33:00.000-05:002007-12-15T02:49:16.656-05:00Who gives who, really? Weaning Malawi out of donor dependency For a country that is said to rely entirely on donor money for its development budget, can today's opening of the new Ntchisi-Mponela road, said to have been financed solely from Malawian taxpayer money, be a turning point from dependency to self-sufficiency? It came quite as a surprise to me to learn that the road, which cost steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-22454833018822111662007-12-09T17:12:00.000-05:002007-12-09T17:17:26.199-05:00When Global Voices Malawi authors meetAlthough we are not quite there yet, the beginning of the year 2008 will mark one year when the two Global Voices authors for Malawi, Victor Kaonga and myself, will have been writing roundups on the Malawi blogosphere. Victor and I live half a world apart, and are always in contact via email and phone. But we had never met before, until this past weekend. Westeve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-28167895088415401492007-11-27T20:23:00.000-05:002007-11-27T20:38:16.972-05:00 When a Pan-Africanist Library Burns: Kanyama Chiume, 1929-2007 When in 2003 I wrote on the Malawi discussion listserv Nyasanet, asking if anybody knew the whereabouts of Kanyama Chiume, somebody responded and said Kanyama had sold his property around 1996 and left Malawi for good, announcing that he would never be back in Malawi again, unless “in a coffin.” This week Kanyama Chiume, a steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-55435201640130600712007-11-17T01:16:00.001-05:002007-11-17T23:58:28.675-05:00Malawianizing the Internet: Discussion forums and the harnessing of knowledge: An InterviewThe interview below was conducted on October 22 with Malawian journalist Kondwani Kamiyala of The Nation newspaper, and a part of what I said was used for a feature article that Kondwani wrote on the uses that Malawians put the internet to. This was before the BBC Africa Have Your Say program of Thursday steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-42828548138050551752007-09-16T20:20:00.000-04:002007-09-17T00:06:15.848-04:00Hedging hegemony: Dr Kyalo Manthi, African fossils & the ownership of science When the news broke out in August of this year that new archaeological research in Kenya urged huge reversals in the conventional wisdom about the theory of evolution, the chasm in the reporting between the African media and the Euro-American one was astoundingly wide. Almost all of the media in the United States steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-31039111685772761102007-07-06T03:09:00.000-04:002007-07-06T03:10:04.959-04:00Reclaiming Malawi’s Place at the Pan-African Table It augurs very well for Malawi’s place in the pan-African world that we are celebrating our 43rd independence anniversary this year the same week that the 9th African Union Summit has been taking place in Accra, Ghana. After 43 odd years of independence, how many of us, not to talk of young Malawians, have a good grasp of the significance of steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-82754413822128966772007-06-27T04:08:00.000-04:002007-06-28T00:13:45.959-04:00Unleashing the Mind: William Kamkwamba, Malawian Genius, and the New Media His is the most inspirational story I have read this year. In 2002 William Kamkwamba was unable to continue with his secondary school education, as his parents couldn’t afford the school fees. This was just after two terms in Form 1 (high school freshman), and he was 14 years old. But his desire to keep reading and steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-64053952587877555152007-06-21T02:27:00.000-04:002007-06-21T02:29:30.434-04:00Festering Africa’s Wounds: Nicholas Kristof and his Africa Trips In his column announcing the second ‘Win a trip’ contest in March of this year, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asked “why the world continue[d] to allow 30,000 children [. . .] to die each day of poverty” (March 9, 2007). The two winners of Mr Kristof’s contest, high school teacher Will Okun, from Chicago, and recent steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-88241790446465069332007-05-29T01:51:00.000-04:002007-05-29T03:15:46.611-04:00Rest in peace, Mde First LadyI wish to join fellow Malawians, Zimbabweans, other Africans and friends of Africa around the world in mourning the sad passing of Mrs. Ethel Mutharika, the wife of Malawi's president, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika. Mrs. Mutharika is reported to have died on Monday, May 28, 2007.Reports say she was suffering from cancer, but very little else is known about her illness. Mrs. steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-26594604521770693862007-04-25T19:24:00.000-04:002007-04-25T20:53:06.529-04:00The New African and 21st century Pan-Africanism During the days of Life President Dr. Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, the only way I was able to read The New African, the London-based pan-African monthly magazine, was through a relative who managed to bring copies to Malawi from Zimbabwe, where he was teaching. The relative sadly passed away in 1997, three years after the end of one-party rule in steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-41923850224602657232007-03-07T04:06:00.000-05:002007-03-07T10:10:27.114-05:00We’re all Ghanaians: Reclaiming Pan-Africanism for the African Renaissance On January 22, 1957, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, then Prime Minister of the then Gold Coast, wrote a letter to Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, inviting them to attend the auspicious occasion of what would on March 6 of that year become the independent nation of Ghana. It would be the first Black African steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-3239449010436508522007-02-26T23:17:00.000-05:002007-02-26T23:18:47.181-05:00Black History, pan-African citizenship, and the 21st century As Black History Month winds up in the United States and in US Embassies around the world, I want to reflect on the larger meaning of the month, and to imagine how a pan-African identity for the 21st century might consolidate the gains of the Black world and help usher in a whole new different reality. The Public Affairs Section of steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-89005766132531211852007-01-15T04:36:00.000-05:002007-01-15T05:32:50.168-05:00Legacies of peace and justice: John Chilembwe and Martin Luther King Jr. That January 15th is set aside in Malawi and in the United States to commemorate two black leaders in two different periods of history, and on two different sides of the world, is a coincidence only the heavens can arrange. In Malawi, January 15th is celebrated as Chilembwe Day, in honor of the Reverend John Chilembwe whosteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-20375331185212458892006-12-05T23:59:00.001-05:002006-12-06T16:41:08.417-05:00Language, politics and development in Malawi The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) last week made an announcement that should open the way to new ideas in not only determining what qualifications prospective Members of Parliament (MP) in Malawi ought to have, but also in how to revitalize Malawian languages for more widespread development. The Commission announced that it has removed the steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-63228773880588498222006-11-22T17:30:00.001-05:002006-11-22T17:44:48.132-05:00Redefining ‘development’ in Malawi: beyond the pessimism For Malawians who haven’t been in Malawi for sometime, the one question they never fail to ask someone who has just returned from the motherland is: So, how is Malawi? Being such a vague, general question, it takes some probing to get at the heart of the query: Is Malawi developing? Ten or so years ago I would have interpreted ‘steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-75410992598694826492006-10-18T01:15:00.000-04:002006-10-18T01:20:43.099-04:00From Material Girl to Spiritual Mum: Madonna, Malawi, and Baby David For Mr. Yohane Banda, who had never heard of the pop diva Madonna until she visited Malawi last week to adopt his 13 month-old son David, the closest he could relate with the material girl was the word Dona, meaning rich white woman, in Malawian parlance. In a matter of days, he now knows her, and the rich guy Guy Ritchie, as steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1160597466063772162006-10-11T16:08:00.001-04:002006-10-15T11:39:49.743-04:00Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton and uMunthu I first drafted this entry more out of an urge to vent, than to reflect. I had difficulty writing about an airport ordeal and connecting it to the African Renaissance and Black Consciousness, until I learned of the recent remarks made by Nobel peace laureate and retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former US president Bill Clinton. Archbishop Tutu has steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1156694398477175472006-08-27T11:59:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:25.123-04:00Homeless in New York CityHaving missed my connecting flight from JFK in New York City to Johannesburg, I have found myself homeless in the city that's open 24 hours. But even more striking for someone with my worldview are the numbers of homeless people on the streets of New York City, well known as capitalism's freemarket capital of the world. Homeless people are literally every where, on the steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1154409685160221222006-08-01T01:11:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.997-04:00Dear Professor Zeleza, This is in response to your recent blog entry that presents a much needed historical perspective on the current Arab-Israeli conflict. A Sunday July 30 CNN question of the day asked viewers to email in their comments on whether they felt it was “now” time for the US government to call for a ceasefire. I’ll be lying if I say I was shocked by the blatant bias in CNN’s steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1152597146260344952006-07-11T01:51:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.932-04:00Zizou’s issues: football’s aesthetics vs. global ethicsWho would have predicted that on the morning after the grand finale of Germany 2006, and in the days to follow, much of the world would be debating a headbutt and its probably or allegedly racist provocation? The issue has divided people’s opinions, with some believing that the reputation of the game solidly rests on the upholding of a steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1151929571620753232006-07-03T08:12:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.872-04:00African football, global inequality and 2010 Much of the African media’s analyses on the reasons why no African team went beyond the second round at the ongoing World Cup Finals in Germany focus on one theme that reflects much of the African media’s analysis of Africa’s problems: self blame. Virtually no analysis I have so far looked at mentions broader issues of global, historical and steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1150517359672328532006-06-17T00:06:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.787-04:00Soweto smoke, 30 years on For the youth of today The earth need not be hungry Swallowing sweat Dripping from bruised brows Winds beating upon backs Still firm and strong <!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> For the youth The earth need not be so dry For our earth is nurture And the road ahead Demands stamina Beyond textbook falsity <!--[if !steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1148095469672338632006-05-19T23:21:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.723-04:00Malcolm X and pan-Africanism today Today, May 19th, marks Malcolm X’s 81st birthday. It is sad to observe that 41 years after his assassination on February 21, 1965, the pan-Africanist awareness and consciousness that Malcolm celebrated on the continent are dead, at a moment when they are in fact needed most. What happened to such a promising start? What can we do today to make pan-Africanismsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1147409138009751942006-05-12T00:05:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.659-04:00Bob Marley and the continuing struggle for global justiceI was in Standard 8 when one of my mother's brothers, William Ziwoya, or Godfrey Ziwoya, as he later insisted on being called, came to live with us at Police College, in Zomba. Uncle Godfrey, who was 7 years older than me, sadly died in 2000, aged 36. In his short life, he taught me two things, one of which has had a defining influence on steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1145825726375484782006-04-23T16:51:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.503-04:00DuBois, Chilembwe, and critical theory in education From April 7 to April 11, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) held its annual conference at the Moscone Center, in downtown San Fransisco, USA. One of the panels that I attended at the conference was dedicated to a discussion of the state of critical theory today. Not since I started situating my work in critical theories steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1140661118879894512006-02-22T19:17:00.000-05:002006-10-11T16:12:24.372-04:00Mother tongues, racialized belief systems, and self-destructionYesterday, February 21, was International Mother Language Day. The day was proclaimed as such by UNESCO in 1999, and was first observed in 2000. In Malawi, The Nation newspaper used the occasion to seek the views of a number of educational authorities on the government's forthcoming policy for lower primary school students to learn insteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1139536284901571412006-02-09T19:36:00.000-05:002006-10-11T16:12:24.291-04:00Malawian cuisine, cosmopolitanism, and mental colonizationWhen Alexander Hotels Limited launched their 'Malawi Night' event at the Shire Highlands Hotel in Blantyre on Friday, January 27, the earliest news reports on the occasion focused on the late arrival of the Minister of Information and Tourism, Hon. Patricia Kaliati, rather than on the issue of why the menus in Malawian hotels and steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1134691954678396772005-12-15T17:35:00.000-05:002006-10-11T16:12:24.232-04:00Paul Theroux's 'mythomaniacs' and Malawian burdenIn his op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Paul Theroux points out the destructive myths that portray Africa as a place that can only be saved by outside help. Using the example of Malawi, where he taught as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s, and where he recently returned for a short visit, Mr. Theroux argues that Africa needs its doctors steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1133300693533459982005-11-29T16:43:00.000-05:002006-10-11T16:12:24.169-04:00'Yesterday' and the global HIV/AIDS discourse Last night, Tuesday Nov. 28, I stumbled upon the new HBO movie 'Yesterday,' having forgotten that I had noticed an advert for it in the New Yorker of last week. I stopped everything I was doing and sat down to watch it. I came away from the experience deeply moved by the story, but unsurprised by the discursive entrenching of dominant paradigms and steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1131268142524540352005-11-06T03:29:00.000-05:002006-10-11T16:12:24.108-04:00Prisons in Malawi, Africa: legacies of borrowed paradigms?On the front page of today's Sunday New York Times (Nov. 6, 2005) is a feature article, by Michael Wines, on conditions in Malawi's prisons in particular, and Africa's in general (click here to read the article; you might be asked to register before proceeding; it's free).I can predict, almost always, that such an article will, as a rule, steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1130110168838888312005-10-23T18:30:00.001-04:002006-10-11T16:12:24.043-04:00Western wealth, African exploitation: Dr. Beckford's Channel 4 documentaryI set up this blog as a forum where I, and others interested, would share thoughts and ideas on the various topics that must be discussed and thought about as we continue envisioning the rebirth of Afrika. The Afrikan renaissance is a topic that hardly gets mention in the world media, let alone on the Afrikan continent. Thesteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1129765751360748022005-10-19T19:18:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.907-04:00Farrakhan and the United States of AfricaThe speech given by Minister Louis Farrakhan on Saturday October 15, at the Millions More Movement's 10-year commemoration of the 1995 Million Man March ought to give more impetus to the push toward the African Rennaisance.Grand in its design and ambitious in its scope, Minister Farrakhan's speech envisioned unity for not only the Black world, but the steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1126331931366254482005-09-10T01:53:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.844-04:00New Orleans and the Third WorldSince my last blog entry on Sunday, September 4th, there has been more attention to the race and class aspects of the tragedy. Not much, however, has been said about the likening of the disaster to the Third World, or to Africa, as several journalists and other individuals did. And so it was very refreshing to read Mukoma wa Ngugi's take on the issue, in his Znet steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1125891344744833952005-09-04T21:50:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.773-04:00Katrina, the "Third World", and the scripting of raceHurricane Katrina has stripped a veneer off the American facade that hides class and race differences from the rest of the world. Of course, for most people who carefully follow these issues both in the US and around the world, there's no veneer. The effects of classism and racism around the world are bare and open for everyone with a steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1124649191915407662005-08-21T14:10:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.711-04:00On President wa Mutharika's firing of deputy Chief of StaffThe two Malawi internet listservs I'm subscribed to, Nyasanet and Malawitalk, have since Wednesday August 17 been dominated by postings on what the president, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, is alleged to have said about Malawians from the Northern region of the country. The president is said to have fired his deputy chief of staff, Joshua steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1124062030461032182005-08-14T19:18:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.649-04:00Malawi can teach the world too, OK?The news this week that a delegation from the east Asian country of Tajikistan has been in Malawi to learn more about the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) bucks a trend common in the way some Malawians view their country. The delegation is in Malawi to LEARN from Malawians. Most of the times Malawians talk about learning from other people. Sometimes people willsteve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1122487207254684032005-07-27T22:58:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.584-04:00Professor Ayittey on Africa's governance problemsPBS documentary on Zimbabwean refugees in BotswanaShown on PBS stations Tuesday, July 26, 2005I missed most of this documentary, titled Border Jumpers and available online, but I managed to catch the interview which followed the program, with Professor George Ayittey, formerly of Ghana, and now Professor of economics at the American University, steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1122424927497181572005-07-27T21:49:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.515-04:00Guns, germs & steel and the Place of AfricaWhen I first read Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997) in 2000 or thereabouts, I felt he was asking questions I had myself been asking, but which I feared nobody else found important. I found the book eye-opening in its historical and geographical sweep, going back more than 10,000 years ago, and covering each steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1122400544320279252005-07-26T13:49:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.386-04:00Teacher Education in Malawi: A Twenty First Century Agenda[I originally wrote this and posted it to the Malawi internet listservs Nyasanet and Malawitalk . I got some feedback from a few people, and will be revising it soon.]July 20, 2005The decision by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources to fire "temporary teachers," as reported by Peter Gwazayani (The Sunday Times, July 10, courtesy steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13806631.post-1119244345354374352005-06-20T01:01:00.000-04:002006-10-11T16:12:23.316-04:00Why the name "Afrika Aphukira?"The name of this blog, "afrika-aphukira," symbolizes my intellectual politics as of this moment. In my mother tongue, chiChewa, a Bantu language spoken mainly in Malawi as a version of chiNyanja, the words "afrika aphukira" translate as "africa will be reborn."The purpose of the blog is to present an on-going account of my current thoughts on the state of the steve sharrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14577221830186168066noreply@blogger.com0