Colonial Chickens Come Home to Roost in the West In the wake of the Brussels bombing, we hear variations of the same old theme: “They [Muslims] hate us [the ‘West’] because of our freedoms.” However, “the reality is, it’s not who we are, but what we do” – wage war in Muslim lands – “that is the problem. It’s our foreign policy, not our cultural values,” said Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror . Kundnani, a British citizen of Indian extraction who lectures at New York University, said polls consistently show that “people in the Middle East do not have any antagonisms to the United States, itself, or its values. What they have antagonisms to is U.S. foreign policy in the region.”
No Slavery Remembrance Day at the White House The United Nations marked a Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade, March 25, but there was no sign of the occasion – “no commemoration, not even rhetoric, nothing” – at the White House, said BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka, a co-founder of the U.S. Human Rights Network. Baraka also attended this month’s 15th anniversary of the UN World Conference Against Racial Discrimination, whose ongoing activities are widely known as the Durban Process. Since the genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Africans “served as the material base for the ascendancy of Europe, then justice demands that some type of repair – reparations – needs to be considered,” said Baraka. However, Europe, the United States and other white settler states have resisted the Durban Process at every turn.
Newark City Council Approves Police Review Board In a unanimous vote, the city council of Newark, New Jersey, authorized the creation of a Civilian Complaint Review Board, with subpoena powers. The council’s action means the board will not go out of existence when its initiator, Mayor Ras Baraka, leaves office. However, “the implementation will still be stymied because the police unions have vowed to go to court to stop it,” said Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, one of the community groups with a seat on the review board.
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Food production in Africa is complicated by climate change and the use of fertilizers which increase food production but which also create green house gases and create other environmental harm.
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Onyesonwu Chatoyer of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party and BAR Book Forum Editor Roberto Sirvent discuss how "We Can Save Ourselves."
This week’s featured scholar is Ayodeji Ogunnaike. Ogunnaike is an assistant professor at Bowdoin College where he teaches interdisciplinary courses on Africa and the African Diaspora highlighting…
The electoral system alone doesn't bring about change that benefits the people. People-centered political formations must be part of any political process.
