Geography Archives: Nigeria

Jeffrey Sachs has become something of a force in international development circles over the past decade.  As special advisor to the UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, former director of the UN’s Millennium Development Project, and a decorated economist at Columbia University, Sachs certainly has much to brag about.  The publication of his runaway bestseller, The […]

In most parts of the world today (except perhaps in India, where optimism about the benefits of unregulated financial markets still seems to dominate over the undisputable evidence of their many fragilities) most policy makers talk about imposing regulations on the financial sector.  Of course, the events of the past two years in the world […]

  Elyse Semerdjian.  Off the Straight Path: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo.  Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008.  xxxviii + 247 pp.  $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8156-3173-6. The content of Off the Straight Path is less juicy than its title suggests.  The reader with an appetite for stories of sexual scandals and dangerous liaisons […]

World-renowned political organizer and one of Africa’s most celebrated poets, Dennis Brutus, died early on December 26 in Cape Town, in his sleep, aged 85. Even in his last days, Brutus was fully engaged, advocating social protest against those responsible for climate change, and promoting reparations to black South Africans from corporations that benefited from […]

  The Sixth Annual Helen Pond McIntyre ’48 Lecture, Barnard College, 5 November 2009 The right to religious freedom is widely regarded as a crowning achievement of secular liberal democracies, one that guarantees the peaceful coexistence of religiously diverse populations.  Enshrined in national constitutions and international laws and treaties, the right to religious liberty promises […]

The Killing Continues Since the suspension of the death penalty in Japan in September of 2009, the US is the only developed nation in the world that continues to execute its citizens — but, perhaps, not for long.  The unmasking of the political agenda behind state-sanctioned killing during the past 25 years and the growing […]

  1 The republication of Jean-François Bayart’s classic book-length essay, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, is an opportunity to reflect on the hypotheses he raises and their application to Sudan and especially Darfur.  Bayart’s book mentions Sudan only in passing but the scope of his ambition is certainly relevant to Sudan […]

  In their article “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’” (2008), Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem critique white gay discourses in Germany and Britain that trade in Islamophobic constructions of a gay-friendly, sexually liberated ‘West’ and a homophobic, sexually oppressive ‘Islam’ as the West’s Other.  They argue that […]

25 August 2009 To the Editor The Economist Dear Sir, This is with regard to the review of my book Listening to Grasshoppers that appeared in The Economist. If this letter is long, ironically it is because the factual errors in the review are so many. In an attempt to highlight my “flawed reporting and […]

With high-volume class strife heard in the rumbling of wage demands and the friction of township “service delivery protests,” rhetorical and real conflicts are bursting open in every nook and cranny of South Africa. The big splits in the society are clearer now.  Distracting internecine rivalries within the main left bloc — which saw off […]

New York, June 3, 2009 — Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court decision dismissing the Wiwa v. Shell plaintiffs’ claims against Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd. (Shell Nigeria).  The District Court had dismissed the case against Shell Nigeria on March 4, 2008, finding it did not have jurisdiction […]

  Paul Nugent.  Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.  xix + 620 pp.  $99.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-333-68272-2; $35.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-333-68273-9. This is a masterful work of usable academic history.  By sharply delineating diverse trends in scores of countries, it applies expert analysis to sub-Saharan Africa, “the continent which has been […]

  Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism?  The question sounds naïve, silly even.  Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved.  If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]

  Part 1 Part 2 Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr., the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, is the author of In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy (2001).  Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian human rights activist and the publisher of Sahara Reporters.  This interview was produced for Sahara Reporters and brought […]

  “For fifty years, crude oil has been flowing from under the feet of the people of the Niger Delta.  For fifty years, they have been promised that this would mean a better life.  This promise has never been kept.  Now, the people have had enough.” Sandy Cioffi is a Seattle-based film and video artist.  […]

  Go to <www.democracynow.org/2009/5/21/nigeria> for the transcript of this program. ABUJA, 22 May 2009 (IRIN) — Thousands of civilians have fled their villages in Nigeria’s Delta state after government troops launched an offensive against militant groups in the state on 13 May. Villagers in Delta state’s Gbramatu kingdom reported Oporoza and Okerenkoko villages being attacked […]

JOHANNESBURG, 11 May 2009 (IRIN) — Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or biofuel.  An area equivalent to Germany’s farmed land is at stake, and tens of billions of dollars on offer.  On the plus side, agro-industrial production could develop underused […]

  Africa has historically been less of a priority to U.S. foreign policy planners than other regions, such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.  This was certainly the case when George W. Bush took office in 2001.  But during the course of his tenure, “Africa’s position in the U.S. strategic spectrum . […]

Dear CCR Supporter, On May 26, 2009, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), co-counsel EarthRights International (ERI), and other human rights attorneys will bring oil giant Shell to federal court in New York for the start of a landmark trial for corporate accountability.  CCR is pleased to make two exciting announcements as we draw nearer […]

  “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]