Transitional Writings on Africa

Overview

For hundreds of years on this island, peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty. At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history. Below the decks, the middle passage was a hot, narrow, sunless nightmare; weeks and months of confinement and abuse and confusion on a strange and lonely sea.

Some refused to eat, preferring death to any future their captors might prepare for them. Some who were sick were thrown over the side. Some rose up in violent rebellion, delivering the closest thing to justice on a slave ship. Many acts of defiance and bravery are recorded. Countless others we will never know. Those who lived to see land again were displayed, examined and sold at auctions across nations in the Western Hemisphere. They entered society indifferent to their anguish and made prosperous by their unpaid labor. There was a time in my country's history where one in every seven human beings was the property of another.

In law they were regarded only as articles of commerce, having no right to travel or to marry or to own possessions. Because families were often separated, many were denied even the comfort of suffering together.

For 250 years the captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity. The spirit of Africans in America did not break.

—George Bush, Goree Island (8 July 2003)

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For the young English teacher, even the choice of the language he was writing in was a political act. In 1968, the local dialect Chichewa was declared Malawi's national language. "Banda tried to establish this thing like the French Academy, choosing which words were in and which were out, but he had mostly everything out, and there wasn't very much in," Mapanje laughs. "So as a result, it was not creative." Mapanje and his colleagues in the writers' group founded just a year later didn't want any part in the promotion of Chichewa, and so "adopted English as a result of that".

It was as part of the writers' group, along with poets such as Felix Mnthali, Steve Chimombo and Frank Chipasula, that he began exploring the rich oral traditions that are so characteristic of his work. The group sought to move beyond the work of Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o: "One of the things that made us slightly more original was that we studied African oral literature more seriously." This oral tradition characterises what Mapanje calls an "African" mode of communication, based on the telling and re-telling of stories.

—Interview with Jack Mapanje, Books Guardian

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A writer should be like a tortoise, always carrying along its home or protective shell wherever it goes. If the African Diaspora will accept reciprocal relations with the continent across the Atlantic, as in the example of Aime Cesaire, then there is no cause to fear this migratory export of our continent’s literature. The important issues for me are: How relevant are these movements to the realities of the masses on either side? Is the discourse still African in content and message? Have the egalitarian concerns of continental African writing become drowned by its close migratory proximity to the elitist perceptions of metropolitan literature? Indeed does the African writer still remain the conscience of his/her people even if he/she becomes an exile of sorts? These to me are the real challenges – the need to sustain the vibrant voices of our writings and remain connected to the aspirations of our people. Remember Ali Mazrui used to say we have suffered from many years of colonial penetration. This may be time for Europe and America to get their own dose of African counter-penetration. – a feat our politicians have failed to perform but which committed African writing can.

—George Ngwane, Cameroonian Literature in Transition. African Writing

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The position of the ANC government in South Africa vis à vis the situation in Darfur is utterly disappointing. Providing unconditional political and diplomatic support to the government of Sudan in its attempts to cover up the crimes it has willfully committed in Darfur amounts to certain complicity. More so, efforts of the government of South Africa to abort robust regional and international plans to protect the defenceless civilian population in Darfur betray the ideals of justice, human dignity, equality, liberty and peaceful coexistence for which the South African masses fought a heroic rebellion against the racist apartheid regime.

Because of such glorious history of that nation, the position of the ANC government in South Africa in support of GoS in the crimes it continues to commit in Darfur disturbs the victims of this tragedy more than the position of China, Egypt, Algeria, Russia or other friends of Sudan. External observers too could easily say that even if Africans don’t give a hang about African victims of the Darfur tragedy why should the rest of the world care? Abdelbagi Jibril

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Table

Abdelbagi Jibril

South Africa and Darfur -- Fact Sheet

Adeyinka Makinde

Book Reviews

Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal

African Retentions

Ahmadou Kourouma

Waiting for the Vote of the Wild Animals

Akoli Penoukou
     The Ancestors Are Not Really Dead
     How can we trust them
     Into His Arms
     Love One Another
     On Learning of Walter Rodney's Death
     Out of the Clouds
Alinnnor Arinze
    Chinese Invasion of Nigeria
Amilcar Cabral
     Amilcar Cabral Bio
     Cabral Bio-Sketch
     The Cabral Quotable
     Island

Murder of Amilcar Cabral

Arthur Edgar E. Smith

Black Consciousness Poet--Claude McKay

Female Characters in Camara Laye

John Pepper Clark's Raft Running Adrift

The Life and Times of Black Poet Claude McKay

Literary Arts in Sierra Leone

Wole Soyina Kongi's Harvest

Bakari Akil

Tears of the Sun

Bankie Bankie

Discussion of Arab Racism in Africa

Lessons and Warnings from South Sudan

Pan-African Nationalist Thought and Practice

South Sudan in Sudan-Situation Analysis

Bantu Stephen Biko: A Profile

Ben Schwartz

Glory Days – Sahara Nights

Letters on Africa

Notes to a Diabetic

Betty Wamalwa Muragori

An African Out in the World

Blue Eyed Dolls in Africa

Dangerous Abroad

How I Became a Marxist

Mind Games and Other Poems

Queen Africa (and other poems)

Say My Name

The Seasons of My City

B.F. Bankie

South Sudan in Sudan-Situation Analysis

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Trans Africa on Mugabe

Binyavanga Wainaina

Banning Chinua Achebe in Kenya

kwani?

Bisi Adjapon

The Funny Side of Racism

Staying in Touch with Ghana

Bruce Dixon

Andy Young, Obasanjo Kin, & Russell Simmons Announce

Chinweizu

Black Africa's duty to help Zimbabwe defeat sanctions

Black Enslavement: Arab and European Compared

Letter from Chinweizu

Racism: Arab and European Compared

Reparations and the Pan-African War on Genocide

Reparations for Darfur: A Resolution

USAfrica: A Mortal Danger for Black Africans

Chioma Oruh

Remembering Biafra: A Literary Review

Chizoma Osuagwu

A Rejoinder To: Black Brothers And Their White Chics

Cliff Chandler

In Search Of Our Culture (narrative of African trip)

Danille K. Taylor

What Does It Mean to Be Black in the 21st Century (narrative of African trip)

Reflections on Senegal and Australia

David Morse

Blood, Ink, and Oil

Can Georgia Do Right

Clinton and Obama on Darfur

Morse Book Reviews

What Can We Learn from Darfur?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

A Critique of the book Out of America

Disadvantaged by race, set back by language

The Joseph Principle Enacted

Edward Brathwaite

the visibility trigger/a poem for kwame nkrumah

Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Zimbabwe: In The House of Stone

Ellen Dunbar

My Grandma Rocks the Cradle and Rules the World

Ellen Tarry

Mr. Randolph Visits Ghana

Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

Explaining the African Predicament

The Inauguration of Illegitimacy

Nigeria A Failed State

The Real Trouble with Zimbabwe

Roguery, Incorporated

Scaffolds of Primitive Corruption

Thieves in the Nigerian Senate

Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde

Equality in African Relationships

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)

Black World and Fanon (1973)

The Fact of Blackness (1952)

Fubara David-West

Reflections on Bush's NBC Interview

Glen Ford

U.S.-Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia

Gloria Chuku

Igbos in Virginia

Godspower Oboido

God's Visit to Nigeria

Poems (MONSTERS / WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MAMA'S LAND)

Gunnar Myrdal

Negro History and Culture

Hakeem Babalola

African Hungarian Union

Etteh's House of Area Boys

Gambian Godfather

Life as African Hungarian—Klara Bassey

Living with Immigration Torture

Nigerians Blood on their Hands

A Nightclub Forbidden to African

The Second Slavery Ship

They Make Me Hate My Type

Henny H. Seibeb, Bernadus C. Swartbooi and T. Elijah Ngurare

Pan Afrikanism in Present Day Namibia

Irene Monroe Irene Monroe Table

Oprah's Good Intentions

Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Issaka K. Souare

Interview with Issaka K. Souare

Jacob H. Carruthers

The Passing of Jacob H Carruthers

Jane Musoke-Nteyafas

African American Writers: Meet Rudolph Lewis

African Musicians Meet Jay Lou Ava

AFRO-DISIAC

Deng and Alek

Enough with the Poisonous Lyrics

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Kiini Ibura Salaam Tells All from Mexico

REMEMBER: CHEIKH ANTA DIOP

WE BE BLACK PEOPLE

Where Is the Love of All Things African?

Women’s Role in Hip Hop

Jean Y.T. Lukaz

Dark Tourism in Ghana: The Joseph Project

Jennifer McGill

A Seminarian’s Religious Journey to Ghana (narrative of African trip)

Jerhretta Dafina Suite

I Am Memory (narrative of African trip)

John Henrik Clarke

The Global Perspective of John Henrik Clarke

PanAfrican Nationalism in the Americas

Portrait of a Liberation Scholar

Julius Kambarage Nyerere

Julius K. Nyerere Bio

Ujamaa By Junious Nyerere

Jumoke Verissimo

A note from my neighbourhood

Skirting around dustbin dreams

Kalamu ya Salaam

Criticisms of the Disapora

The Forts and Castles of Ghana (narrative of African trip)

Foreign Exchange (narrative of African trip)

Haile Gerima in Ghana

Once You've Been There (narrative of African trip)

What's Your Name? (narrative of African trip)

The Whole of Ourselves (narrative of African trip)

K.L. Barron

Nomads of Niger

Kola Boof

Bible Killers of Sudan

Bio-Chronology

Black Americans Campaign

Boof Banned in Anacostia

Boof Dismissed as Star

Boof Surrenders

Christmas on the Nile

Every Little Bit Hurts

Gone Dry

Kola Boof Fraud

My Master, My Husband

SUDAN: Purple Eye

To Be Invisible

WHO IS KOLA BOOF?

Kwame Nkrumah

Osagyefo on African Renaissance

Responsibility of a Pan-African Socialist

Lamin Sanneh

Abolitionists Abroad

Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd

Remembering Chinwe & Teaching in Nigeria (narrative of African trip)

Lil Joe

Zimbabwe Crisis

Louis Reyes Rivera Louis Reyes Rivera Table

Creating an Africana Canon

Madge Dresser

The Atlantic Slave Trade

Mahmood Mamdani

When Victims Become Killers

Margaret Kimberley

Oprah and Bad Samaritans

Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

Pieces of a Dream

Marvin X Marvin X

Africa or America: The Emphasis in Black Studies Programs

Masauko Chipembere

A Hip Hop Clothing Store

Historical Context for Hip Hop Store in Malawi

Maulana Karenga

Kwanzaa and the Seven Principles

Maurine Otor

Poems for Peace in Kenya

Poems of Love and Pain

Mfanelo Skwatsha

South African Oppression and Poverty

Milton Allimadi

The Hearts of Darkness

Inventing Africa: New York Times

Times Concocted 'Darkest Africa'

Mpumelelo Toyise

Ban Firearms in South Africa

Mohammed Naseehu Ali

The Prophet of Zongo Street

Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Justice for Mau Mau War Veterans

Naboth Mokgatle

Christian Missionaries in Phokeng

Unknown South African Reviews

Natasha Gerson (Holland)

Richard Wright's Seven Photos

Ng'ethe Githinji

I Am Not Superman #1

Twenty Short Stories of Love

Niyi Juliad

Osundare's Universe of Burdens

The Poet's Pen & Other Poems

Niyi Osundare

Dear President Obasanjo: Another Letter

Niyi Osundare At 60 (Ugochukwu)

Niyi Niyi Osundare (poem) by Lee Meitzen Grue)

Osundare's Universe of Burdens

PraiseSong for Niyi Osundare (Mona Lisa Saloy)

Norman Otis Richmond

Remembering Ahmed Sekou Touré as Guinea Turns 50

Onyeka Nwelue

Interview with Onyeka Nwelue

Men in Suit? Give ’Em A Chance

Onyeka Nwelue Interviews Jude Dibia

The Train Journey (short story)

A Tree Was Once an Embryo

Patrice Lumumba

Independence Day Speech (Lumumba, June 30, 1960)

Letter to Pauline Lumumba

Lumumba: A Biography (Robin McKown)

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Patrick Bond

African Workers and Scholars Unite

Paul Odili

My plans to satisfy Nigerians Ojukwu

Peter Eric Adotey Addo

The African Queen

Books by Peter Addo

For Kwame Nkrumah

Ghana - A Year Ago

How a Black African Views His American Black Brothers

Origins Of African American Spiritualism

Peter H. Abrahams

Abrahams Bio to 1957

Kwame Nkrumah, Kenyatta, and the Old Order

Phillis Wheatley

On Being Brought from Africa to America

Richard Drayton

The Wealth of the West Was Built on Africa's Exploitation

Robert Mugabe

UN Speech

Roi Ottley

God Save His Majesty's Blacks

Romare Bearden

About Romare Bearden

The Negro Artist and Modern Art

Rose Ure Mezu Rose Ure Mezu Index

Africana Women Their Historic Past and Future Activism

The Fourth World Multiculturalism as Antidote to Global Violence

A History of Africana Women's Literature

Introduction: A Continuum of Black Women's Activism

Of National and Racial Archetypes

Rudolph Lewis

The Adventures ofBlack Girl in Her Search for God

I, Momolu or Liberia in the Bush (book review)

In Search of an African Identity (narrative of African trip)

President Omar al-Beshir Do You Know This Man?

Rudy Interviews Askia Touré

Telling the Truth about Africa

Tending One’s Own Garden (book review of Shaw's "Black Girl")

Why Africa Ain't Israel in Today's African American Thinking

Runoko Rashidi

Niger and the National Museum of Niger

Sitawa Namwalie

An African Out in the World

Blue Eyed Dolls in Africa

Dangerous Abroad

How I Became a Marxist

Mind Games and Other Poems

Queen Africa (and other poems)

     Say My Name

     The Seasons of My City

     Tribe (On Kenyan Political Violence)

Would You (Poem on Kenyan Violence)

S. Okechukwu Mezu

Nigerian Elections 2007: Chronicle of Shame and Deceit

Spring Ulmer

Back from Rwanda

Tourism of Death

Stanton Tierman

Baltimore's Old Slave Markets, 1835 Well-Established Dealers

Steve Biko

Bantu Stephen Biko

On Black Consciousness

Stephen Millies

Lynched Mau Mau Leader Dedan Kimathi

Stephen Gowans

Zimbabwe's Lonely Fight for Justice

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

Deposing Charles Taylor

Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa

African Diaspora in the 21st Century

Haiti after the Press Went Home

I Am an African

Nobody ever chose to be a slave

On Saartjie Baartman

Uche Nworah Uche Nworah Table

Feminism in Africa

The Mythology of Igbo Names

Nke Onye Chiri Ya Zaa!(On Igbo Titles)

Nigerian Politicians as Gangsters

Prime Minister Tony Blair and the African Poverty Crises

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye Ugochukwu Table

APRM: Will the Dragon Dance in Abuja?

A Mother Like Stella Obasanjo

Baroness Lynda Chalker

Must Baroness Lynda Chalker Insult Us Too?

Nigeria: The High Cost Of Neglect

Nigeria's Gen. Obasanjo An Extortioner?

The Pope and "Dictatorship of Relativism"

Still A Cannibal In Our Midst

Ugochukwu Interviews Sam Kargbo

Where Then Shall We Run To?

Van G. Garrett

African Folktales Still Influence Modern Thought

Victor Dike

Democracy and Political Life in Nigeria

The Osu Caste Discrimination

Walter Bgoya

From Tanzania to Kansas and Back

W.D. Weatherford

African Background of the Negro

W.E.B. Du Bois

Letter to Yolande 1958

Speaks to Africa (All-African Congress in 1958)

Yambo Ouolohuem

Bound to Violence Bio & Review

Interview of Yambo Ouologuem

The Legend of the Saifs

Night of the Giants

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Files on Zimbabwe

Attempt to Defame Grace Mugabe

Black Africa's duty to help Zimbabwe defeat sanctions

Colin Powell on Mugabe

In The House of Stone

Land Expropriations

The Lynching of Robert Mugabe