A blog about African history, and heritage, through audio and video files.
Author: Dr. Y.
I am an African in love with the history of the world, and particularly that of Africa. I am a child of love, an artist, a scientist, a lover, a friend, a human.
I am in love with nature and beautiful things, art, history, geography, travel, dance, food, science, and technology, and much more.
At the beginning of the month, Mali and Niger jointly put an end to two long-standing tax treaties with France. We know that French companies in Mali or Niger (and in other of the zone Franc countries) do not pay taxes in the African countries, but rather back in France, even though the generated revenues come 100% from the host African country. Imagine the economic losses for these countries? In most of these countries, the French companies will extract, say in the case of mining, the resources, without as much as building a single road or hospital for the local populations. One can thus understand the logic behind Mali and Niger governments’ actions. Some news media (mostly western ones) claim that now Malians or Nigeriens leaving in France will be subject to double taxation… but how many billion-euros generating Malian or Nigerien companies are there in France? The answer is ZERO! There goes that pointless argument about a few (granted there are a few) Malian citizens in France having to pay taxes, while Orano (old Areva) makes billions in Niger without paying taxes to the Niger government! Such an unfair treaty really needed to go!!!
In a significant shift in fiscal and diplomatic relations, Mali and Niger have taken a stand against France by revoking two long-standing tax cooperation treaties. Dating back to 1972, these agreements were initially crafted to circumvent double taxation, fostering mutual assistance in tax matters.
The decision, outlined in a joint statement from the governments of Mali and Niger, hinged on France’s ‘persistent hostile attitude’ towards both nations and the ‘unbalanced character’ of the agreements. These treaties, according to the statement, have led to substantial financial deficits for both West African countries.
This move signals a potential reconfiguration of the international tax landscape and geopolitical alignments in the region, particularly between these nations and France. The revocation of these treaties also depicts a wider discontent with France’s influence in West African affairs.
Niger’s junta has also scrapped two key military agreements with the European Union aimed at combating violence in Africa’s Sahel region. Moreover, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have withdrawn from the G5 anti-jihadist force, further intensifying the region’s security concerns.
At the end of 2021, we celebrated the win of Senegalese author Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, the first man from sub-Saharan Africa to win the prestigious literary Prix Goncourt, 100 years after René Maran who was the first person of African descent to win the prize for his controversial novel Batouala. Mbougar Sarr’s winning novel, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (The Most Secret Memory of Men), tells the story of a young Senegalese writer living in Paris who stumbles by chance across a novel published in 1938 by a fictional African author named TC Elimane, nicknamed “the Black Rimbaud” by an ecstatic Paris media. The story, described as a reflection on the links between fiction and reality, follows the life of a cursed African writer echoing the real-life experience of the Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem who in 1968 was the first African winner of the prix Renaudot, but was later accused of plagiarism, and had to flee France back to his natal Mali, to live a reclusive life, and die in utter misery.
Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem in France in November 1968. Photograph: Yves Le Roux/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images/The Guardian
Now thanks to Mbougar Sarr’s work, the publishing house Penguin Modern Classics is re-publishing the Yambo Ouologuem’s book over 50 years after his work was pulled out and banned. Le devoir de violence (published in English as Bound to Violence) was first published in 1968 by Editions du Seuil. After winning the Prix Renaudot that very year, Ouologuem became a celebrity equated to the likes of Leopold Sedar Senghor. “Ouologuem’s novel is harshly critical of African nationalism, and in fact reserves its greatest hostility for the violence Africans committed against other Africans” (Richard Posner on Plagiarism, the case of Yambo Ouologuem). For many critics, Africans in particular, Ouologuem’s book is a validation of the twisted views of the West on Africa who exonerate themselves of the violence they committed on Africans throughout centuries.
In 1968 the books pages of the French newspaper Le Monde excitedly praised an uncompromising new novel, Bound to Violence, going on to salute its author as one of “the rare intellectuals of international stature presented to the world by Black Africa”.
The newspaper’s words, written in tribute to the young Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem, sound condescending today. Back then, however, the intended compliment was genuine and many European critics soon agreed: the publication of Ouologuem’s strange novel really did mark the arrival of a major new talent.
But the literary world can be brutal, and particularly so for a young African novelist living in Paris who was attempting a fresh twist on conventional storytelling.
Fellow African writers began to express shock at Ouologuem’s harsh parody of his own culture. Three years later damaging accusations of plagiarism had also emerged, including a public skirmish with Graham Greene, which ended Ouologuem’s short career. He retreated into the life of a recluse, returned to Mali and died in 2017, having never published again.
Now, 50 years after this scandal, Penguin Classics is to bring out a new English edition of Bound to Violence in a bid to rehabilitate the gifted author and introduce him to new readers.
Winners of the L’Oréal-UNESCO Young Talent Prize for Women in Science Hadidjatou Daïrou (L) and Sabine Adeline Fanta Yadang (R), pose for a photograph at the Institute of Medical Research and Medicinal Plant Studies in Yaounde on November 23, 2023 (Source: AFP / VOA)
Two Cameroonian women, Sabine Adeline Fanta Yadang, a doctor of neuroscience, and Hadidjatou Daïrou, a doctor of cellular physiology, have won the prestigious L’Oréal-Unesco Young Talent Award for Women in Science for their work on the power of medicinal plants. They were chosen among 30 scientists in sub-Saharan Africa to win the award on November 8 at a ceremony held in Botswana.
Their work focuses on the use of traditional medicinal plants in Cameroon for treating cardiovascular disease and alzheimer. Daïrou’s work centers around the use of kola nut (Garcinia Kola) to improve cardiovascular health, while Yadang’s focuses on tigernut milk which is extracted from a plant with centuries-old medicinal virtues to slow alzheimer. Both scientists work together in the laboratory of the Institute for Medical Research and the Study of Medicinal Plants (IMPM) in Yaoundé, the capital. They also hail from the rural north of Cameroon where education for women, and particularly a career in science is rare.
In Cameroon’s rural north, very few girls go on to enjoy careers in science. But Sabine Adeline Fanta Yadang, a neuroscience doctor, and Hadidjatou Dairou, PhD student of cellular physiology, have smashed through the glass ceiling.
They have been recognized for the quality of their research, along with 28 others from sub-Saharan Africa, by the L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Young Talents program.
UNESCO says the program supports “young women researchers around the world to pursue scientific careers at home or abroad.”
Both women were distinguished for their research into the potential of Cameroon’s traditional herbal medicines in the treatment of heart disease and Alzheimer’s.
Kola nut
They work in a laboratory at Yaounde’s Institute for Medical Research and Medicinal Plant Studies, IMPM.
… Dairou’s interest in herbal medicine goes back to her years as a pharmacology student at the public University of Ngaoundere, in the country’s north. “I’ve seen what a plant extract does to the human body and how that can help people I know,” she says. The UNESCO program picked out her research into the “potential of the indigenous Garcinia Kola plant for treatment of cardiovascular disease.”
Fanta Yadang … likes to be known as a Moundang, a community from Cameroon’s Far North region, where her grand-parents took herbal cures. “I wanted to become a doctor, but I didn’t get good enough marks. I wanted to help my fellow people so I became interested in medicinal plants,” she says.
… For Dairou, the bark of the bitter Garcinia Kola — a grain that looks like a nut eaten across Africa to ease all kinds of problems — may improve cardiovascular health.
“In particular atherosclerosis, one of the major causes of heart attacks,” she explained.
I found this poem by the great South African writer, activist, educator, journalist, and poet, Dennis Brutus, “Hopes for a better world.” I found it quite appropriate in these times. Dennis Brutus is known as one of the most prolific South African writers. Born in then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Brutus grew up in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) where he was classified as “coloured” under South African apartheid codes. He was an activist against the apartheid government of South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its institutionalized segregation system of apartheid. He is among Africa’s greatest and most influential modern poets.
This poem, “Hopes for a better world” was written on a trip from Caracas, Venezuela, to Durban, South Africa. At the beginning of the poem, Brutus stated, “There are lively political struggles in our time, particularly in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.” The poem is really about the outlook one has on life, the wish for simple joys, and the hope that something good will come. It highlights simple needs: the joys that come from a smile, the appreciation of frankness, openness, and friendliness.
As we uncover this somber chapter of the history of Tanzania (then part of German East Africa), it is important to note that the events related mark yet again another part of German history that has been erased from history books: genocides in Africa.
Map of German East Africa with the areas affected by the rebellion highlighted in red
After the Berlin conference of 1884, Germany had several colonies in Africa, German South-West Africa (Namibia), German East Africa (Ruanda-Urundi, Tanganyika, and the Kionga Triangle), Kamerun, and Togoland. Germany tried to reinforce their presence in the different regions by using repressive methods. They built roads, bridges, and more, through forced labor. In 1902, in Tanganyika, they forced the populations to plant cotton as a cash-crop for export, levying harsh taxes upon whoever would not bring a particular quota of cotton. This caused an uproar among the populations who had to leave their own cultures of edible plants to cultivate cotton that nobody ate and which brought nothing to them but tough sanctions from the German occupants. In 1905, when a drought hit, the populations had reached breaking point. It is at that time that a prophet by the name of Kinjikitile Ngwale emerged, claiming to have made a war medicine, a potion that could repel German bullets called “Maji Maji,” which means “sacred water,” maji being water in Kiswahili. Armed with arrows, spears, and doused with Maji Maji water, the first warriors of the rebellion began to move against the Germans, attacking German outposts, and destroying cotton crops. Thus started the Maji Maji rebellion which spread throughout the colony, involving over 20 different ethnic groups, leading to a war which lasted from 1905 to 1907 where 75,000 to 300,000 Africans died.
Gustav Adolf von Götzen Governor of German East Africa from 1901 to 1905
As we saw earlier, there had been the Abushiri revolt of 1888 to 1889, the Chagga revolt with Mangi Meli in the North east of Tanganyika earlier, the Wahehe (Hehe) revolt of 1891 to 1898 which culminated with the decapitation of King Mkwawa, all served as precursors to the Maji Maji uprising. The height of the Maji Maji rebellion came at Mahenge on August 1905 where several thousand warriors attacked but failed to overrun a German stronghold defended by Lieutenant von Hassel. On October 21, 1905 the Germans retaliated with an attack on the camp of the unsuspecting Ngoni people who had recently joined the rebellion. The Germans killed hundreds of men, women, and children. This attack marked the beginning of a brutal counteroffensive that left an estimated 75,000 Maji Maji warriors dead by 1907. The Germans also adopted famine as a weapon, with their scorched-earth technique which destroyed the crops of the populations creating mass starvation; Captain Wangenheim, one of German troops’ leaders in the colony, wrote to the Governor of German East Africa Gustav Adolf von Götzen, “Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean.”
Flag of Tanzania
During his visit to Tanzania at the beginning of the month, the German president stopped at the museum in Songea which was built in homage of Chief Songea Mbano, one of the leaders of the Maji Maji rebellion, executed in 1906 by German forces. Songea Mbano was a great Ngoni warrior, hanged in 1906 during the time of German repression of the Maji Maji rebellion. Songea had been spared the death sentence because he had surrendered. However he demanded to be hanged along with the other Ngoni leaders. The Germans happily complied.
One day, at church, a man is praying on the pew loudly, “Lord, please send me 4,000 Naira, that is all I need! … Lord! if you send me ₦4,000, I will do anything!… O Lord, answer my prayers… all I need is ₦4,000 … JESUS!!! ₦4,000 is all I need! Lord of Hosts, let ₦4,000 rain on me.” The man goes on in his prayers screaming and shouting in the church.
Suddenly, there is a tap on his shoulder… he stops, opens his eyes, thinking to himself “Who in this world is interrupting my prayers?” The man seated next to him, hands him ₦4,000, and continues praying. The other man is so happy, and says, “Wait, God really answers prayers so fast!”
At the end of the church service, he asks his pew neighbor, “neighbor, you don’t know what you have done for me… butwhy did you give me ₦4,000 ?”
The man replies, “with your loud screams, you were blocking my prayers for ₦50 millions.”
Mali military forces have succeeded in liberating the city of Kidal from terrorist groups where France and its allies and the MINUSMA could not. They succeeded in a few days, where it took years for France and company. On November 14 2023, president Assimi Goïta of Mali announced the liberation of Kidal, stronghold of terrorist groups for the past few years. The news was so stunning that even the BBC who has been calling the Mali government, ‘the junta’ and all sorts of names, and always showing ugly pictures of Assimi Goïta, had to, begrudgingly write the article and for once showed him in a decent image :). When you listen or read the western media, they say that it is thanks to the help of Wagner that the Malian forces freed the town… Malian forces liberated Kidal, that is all that matters! France was there, how many years, and could not defeat them!
Colonel Assimi Goïta (Source: AllAfrica.com)
This goes without citing the treacherous behavior of the MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission, which weeks before they were set to leave at the request of the Malian government, breached their agreements with the government for a safe handout, and left abruptly leaving all sorts of heavy artillery for the rebel groups to take over the city… I wonder how the MINUSMA must be feeling now?
Joy is overfilling our hearts: it is a first step and we are so proud of our FAMas (Forces Armées Maliennes / Malian Armed Forces)… we are so proud of Mali. We need to stay focused and continue the fight. This shows what we have been saying for years: Africans can govern themselves and are sick and tired of foreign interference and intrusion in our affairs. We all know who the real terrorists are in Mali, they are groups paid by these foreign forces to destabilize the region so as to keep getting free resources. This is a first victory, and there will be many more to come. As Thomas Sankara used to say, “La Patrie ou la mort, nous vaincrons!”
Mali’s military has seized control of the northern town of Kidal, marking the first time the army has held the Tuareg rebel stronghold in nearly a decade, state broadcaster ORTM reported Tuesday.
“This is a message from the president of the transition to the Malian people,” journalist Ibrahim Traore said in his introduction to the ORTM news bulletin. “Today, our armed and security forces have seized Kidal. Our mission is not over.”
…
Separatist Tuareg rebels in the north have long sought an independent state they call Azawad. In 2012, they dislodged the Malian military from the town, setting into motion a series of events that destabilized the country.
… Amid the chaos, Islamic extremists soon seized control of the major northern towns including Kidal, imposing their strict interpretation of Islamic law known as Shariah.
In 2013, France led a military intervention to oust the extremists from power, but they later regrouped and spent the next decade launching attacks on the Malian military and U.N. peacekeepers.
Another military coup in 2020, led by transition president Col. Assimi Goïta, resulted in deteriorating relations with Mali’s international partners. Mali’s foreign minister ordered the U.N. peacekeeping mission known as MINUSMA to depart, and forces left Kidal at the beginning of November.
African Heritage 