Thomas Isidore Sankara, notre héros africain, mort pour ses convictions et son amour de son peuple, et de sa patrie. Ce grand héros a fait l’un des plus beau discours que j’ai jamais entendu sur la dette africaine! Quelle éloquence mon Dieu! Quelle vérité! et quel humour! Je suis d’accord avec lui que la dette africaine ne peut pas être entièrement payée… et que les pays membres qui ne vont pas aux réunions de l’UA ne devraient pas recevoir les mêmes faveurs que ceux qui y assistent assidûment. De plus, il parle de consommer africain: toute sa délégation était habillée par des tisserands Burkinabés. Regardez, écoutez, et célébrez avec moi l’un des plus grands hommes qui ait foulé le sol du continent africain.
Burkina Faso
Thomas Isidore Sankara, our African hero, killed for his convictions, love of his people and his country. This great hero gave one of the greatest speech I have heard about the problem of African debt. Such an eloquence! Such Truth my Lord! Such humour! I do agree with him that the African debt cannot be entirely paid… and that the African nations who do not show up at the UA summit should not have favors extended to them the same as those who attend the meetings. Moreover, he talks about living and breathing African: his delegation and himself were entirely dressed by Burkinabes tailors with cotton from Burkina Faso. Please watch, listen, and celebrate one of the greatest man the African continent has ever seen!
Affectionately known as KK, Kenneth Kaunda was the first president of Zambia.
Kenneth Kaunda with Nelson Mandela
While president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda nationalized the copper mines, and also worked towards freeing all the Black people of Southern Africa from white supremacy. He supported freedom fighters in the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, in Southern Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe), Namibia, and South Africa. He even met with Pieter Botha and B.J. Vorster to solve the issue of apartheid in South Africa, but got no results. Being so close to all these countries and seeing what his fellow brothers were going through made him want to fight. He played a crucial part in the liberation of all of southern Africa from white supremacy. Zambia paid a price for its backing of those countries by being bombed by the Apartheid government.
KK on a Zambian currency note
One thing I remember clearly is the day KK went on national television to sensibilize the Zambian people about the danger of AIDS. He had just lost his son to AIDS, and he was on tears, and urged the people of Zambia to take precautions. I was impressed! How many presidents do you see doing that? or at least how many African presidents do that?
Please enjoy this interview given by Kenneth Kaunda to CNN African voices. One other special plus… Kenneth Kaunda is a great singer!
Don’t forget to watch Part 2 and 3 of the interview.
“I have been a journalist since the age of 15. I started as an errand boy at a newspaper called Semences africaines, in the city of Yaoundé, Cameroon. Over the past 34 years, I have been arrested 126 times while carrying out my profession as a journalist. Physical and mental torture, death threats, the ransacking of my newsroom, etc., has often been my daily lot in a situation where repression and corruption, even within the press, have become the norm. Woe betide the slightest dissenting voice in this context, for it attracts all kinds of wrath, even from so-called colleagues…”
“I have never felt like a prisoner when I have been behind bars. You can be in prison without being a prisoner; the real prisoners are those who imprison journalists whose only crime is to inform or to express an opinion… ”
“… my long stay in prison above all stimulated my sense of solidarity with others, particularly the poor and the outcast… strengthened my determination to use journalism as a weapon against all kinds of abuse. For there is no better weapon than words for restoring peace and justice among people…”
“To have the privilege of writing taken away from you overnight feels like being victim of a crime…”
“During a lecture I once gave to students from a well-known university in New York, the director of the school of journalism made the following remark: “Mr. Njawe, my students and I appreciated your brilliant exposé of the situation regarding press freedom in Cameroon and in Africa in general. But I cannot help wondering one thing: either you invented all these stories to impress us, which I could understand, or everything you have told us is true and I am dying to ask you why you continue to work in the profession in the suicidal situation you describe?”
“It is indeed difficult to understand why people persist in a profession that causes them so much misery and suffering. As regards my own case, I invariably reply to everyone who wonders this, that I entered journalism the way you enter a religion; journalism is my religion.I believe in it, and a thousand trials, a thousand arrests, a thousand imprisonments and as many death threats will never make me change job. On the contrary, the harder it is, the more you have to believe in it and cling to it.”
“Even in the depths of a prison cell you can feel good about being a journalist. How many times have I not rubbed my hands in my cell, my fingers itching to once again hold a pen between them, when thinking back over my career? How many times have I smiled when recalling an editorial or an article that helped foil the most atrocious plans against Cameroon and its people? If only for consolation, one sometimes ends up saying: “They’re right to take it out on me like this, after all, I haven’t spared them in my articles…“. ”
Respecting ethical standards is of fundamental importance for anyone wishing to be a journalist. It protects you against all kinds of people who would like to teach you a lesson. When you are facing a judge who is being manipulated, it is your irreproachable professional defense that makes that judge examine his or her own conscience. It is what wins your colleagues over to your cause when you are in difficulty. Doing your job properly therefore seems to be the best advice anyone can give a journalist operating in a context of constant harassment. And doing your job properly also, and above all, means avoiding “gumbo journalism“, a practice becoming increasingly widespread in our profession, where people write what they are paid to write instead of giving real information and the truth. While journalists have the right to earn a decent living, even in emerging nations,honest journalists never need pockets in their shrouds…
Journalists perform a social function, which gives them not immunity, but the right to look critically at the way a nation is being run. While playing this crucial role, it is important for them to be protected by the law, but also by the whole of society for which they work…Every time a journalist is silenced, society loses one of its watchdogs.
Le 3 Mai est la journée internationale de la liberté de presse. Pour moi, quand je grandissais à Douala, la liberté de presse avait toujours été symbolisée par Pius Njawe et son journal ‘le Messager‘. Qui au Cameroun n’a pas lu ‘le Messager’? Qui n’a pas souri sous les caricatures du ‘Messager Popoli‘? Je dévorais assidument chaque page de son journal… Au debut, quand j’étais toute petite, la rubrique ‘Takala et Muyenga‘ était la seule qui m’interessait car elle était amusante et il y avait de très belles carricatures (oui j’admets… j’aimais les dessins). Petit à petit, j’ai commencé à lire l’éditorial écrit par Pius Njawe lui-même, et puis finalement le journal tout entier. Mon père étais un abonné hors-pair, et c’est grâce à lui que le ‘Messager’ est devenu presque synonyme de ‘vraies‘ nouvelles (i.e. non contrôlée par l’etat) dans mes pensées. Pius Njawe avait un don, une passion: il aimait la vérité! Il était à la recherche de la vérité et du bien-être de la société civile. Il n’avait pas peur d’aller en prison pour avoir publier des articles poignants contre le gouvernement en place; il avait d’ailleurs été arrêté plus de 126 fois. En 2000, Njawe est nommé parmi les 50heros de la liberté de la presse des derniers 50 ans.
Le Messager
Quand je pense que Njawe avait créé ‘le Messager’ à l’age de 22 ans en 1979, sans même avoir fait d’études avancées… C’est surprenant!… non, impressionant! Il avait toujours était guidé par sa passion, et c’est certainement pour cela que ‘Le Messager’ était si différent de tous les autres journaux de la place: il était authentique, mû entièrement par la passion et la recherche de la vérité impartiale… bref par le journalisme à l’état pur! Que puis-je dire? La perte de Pius Njawe est comme la perte d’une perle precieuse, car Pius Njawe était effectivement une perle rare pour le Cameroun. Il avait résisté pendant 30 ans, et avait payé de cela par ses détentions arbitraires en prison, le saccage de ses bureaux par le gouvernement, l’exil au Benin (qui avait duré 1 an), la fausse-couche de sa femme (qui avait été battue en prison), la mort de sa femme, et ensuite lui-même. Il a payé de sa vie son amour de sa patrie, de la vérité, et du journalisme. Une chose est sûre et certaine, il a touché chacun d’entre nous, et son oeuvre continuera à jamais. Hasta la vista Pius, tu nous a ouvert les yeux à la cause de la démocratie et de la liberté. Tu resteras dans nos memoires comme étant le plus grand combattant, et opposant camerounais, car tu t’es opposé au népotisme, à la dictature, à l’injustice, et à la gabegie. Comme disait si bien Agostinho Neto: “La lutte continue et la victoire est certaine!”
Pius Njawe in jail
May 3rd is the World Press Freedom Day. Pius Njawe and his journal ‘le Messager’ have come to symbolize this day to me. Pius Njawe’s pioneering work as the head of le ‘Messager‘ has marked me for as long as I can remember. His journal was not only the first true alternative to Cameroon Tribune (state-owned newspaper), but the real way to find news about what was truly going on in the country. In 2000, the Austria-based International Press Institute listed Mr. Njawe among its 50 world press freedom heroes of the past half-century. The institute called Mr. Njawe “Cameroon’s most beleaguered journalist and one of Africa’s most courageous fighters for press freedom.” Yes… Njawe was the quintessential freedom fighter in a country where the press was constantly controlled and held under the sword of Damocles by the regime. He was arrested over 126 times, most of the time simply for telling the truth and keeping the government under constant check. He embodied what true journalism is all about: the impartial search for truth. While resisting the regime for over 30 years, he had come to symbolize the true voice of the people, the voice of those who could not speak, those who had no one, the people of Cameroon. We salute you Pius, you were indeed a true freedom fighter, and the true representant of the people! You will sorely be missed!
As an African physicist, I have always wondered why there were no laws, theorems, equations named after African scientists. Living in a world where Schrodinger equation, Bose-Einstein statistics, Pythagorean theorem, and Newton’s laws are norms, and being African, I have always felt left out… It is as if my forefathers were not interested in science, or that modern day Africans were not as bright as Raman (Physics Nobel 1930) or Chandrasekhar (Physics Nobel 1983). Well… I was amazingly surprised when I stumbled upon ‘the Mpemba effect‘: made in Africa, by an African high schooler in 1963 (he later published his findings in 1969). Today, people apply his law without even thinking about where it comes from.
Erasto B. Mpemba, hailing from Tanzania, was still in high school when he came across this phenomenon when freezing hot milk; he noticed that it would freeze before the cold one. After repeating his experiments several times with water and milk, the Mpemba effect was born. The heat transfer is bigger between the warm water and the freezer, than between the cold water and the freezer, leading to a faster process. Several mechanisms can be used to explain this effect, such as: – Evaporation (endothermic process); – Convection (faster heat transfers); frost formation (the colder water will tend to freeze from the top, reducing further heat loss by radiation and air convection, while the warmer water will tend to freeze from the bottom and sides because of water convection); supercooling; and – dissolved gases (Hot water can hold less dissolved gas than cold water, and large amounts of gas escape upon boiling. So the initially warmer water may have less dissolved gas than the initially cooler water). More information on the ‘Mpemba effect’ can be found on Mpemba and Osborne, “Cool”, Physics Education vol. 4, pgs 172–5 (1969) and Can hot water freeze faster than cold water?
As of 2002 Erasto B. Mpemba is retired from being Principal Game Officer for the African Forestry and Wildlife Commission. This might not give rise to a Nobel prize, but it is enough to inspire others.
Le génie incontesté du Zouk Africain n’est plus! J’ai les yeux remplis de larmes, et l’âme fendue, car c’est encore hier que j’écoutais ‘Bane‘, Nge‘, ‘Bijou‘, ‘Chérie‘, ‘Adia‘, et ‘Assombo‘! Oliver N’Goma (affectueusement NOLI) est un artiste Gabonais, dont la voix suave a fait vibrer l’Afrique toute entière au rythme du Zouk en langues Gabonaises. A mon avis, le don d’ Oliver se mesurait par l’amour des choses bien faites, des melodies dansantes, et de la recherche de la perfection! L’on pouvait ressentir dans sa musique les rayons de soleil sur la peau, et la joie de vivre. Beaucoup disent qu’il devait certainement être un grand amoureux, et adorer les femmes… car à travers ses mélodies, l’on se sentait bercer par l’amour et chaque femme se sentait belle et desirée! La chanson ‘BANE‘ sortie en 1989 fait partie des plus grands hits de la musique africaine moderne a l’egal de ‘MARIO‘ de Franco, d’ANCIEN COMBATTANT de Zao, de PATA PATAde Miriam Makeba, ou encore de KWASSA KWASSAde Kanda Bongo Man. Ce titre est marqué par un equilibre entre la richesse mélodique africaine, et une rythmique zoukante très efficace pour la danse. L’album BANE, devient l’une des plus grosses ventes de l’histoire de la musique africaine. Depuis 1990 aucun autre titre n’a réussi à faire ombre à BANE dans les hit-parades comme dans le coeur du public. L’album ‘ADIA‘ qui voit le jour mi-décembre 95, est un melange parfait de sophistication et foisonnement rythmique. En 2001, apparait ‘SÉVA‘, suivit de ‘SAGA‘ en mai 2006. Tous ces titres confirment clairement le status de roi incontesté du Zouk Africain conferé a Oliver N’Goma! Cher Oliver, tu nous manqueras certainement, mais ton oeuvre bercera l’humanité pour les siecles a venir! Si j’etais reine, je te confererais le status de Roi! Love…
Oliver N’Goma, the king of Afro-Zouk is no longer! Hailing from Gabon, Oliver is one of those artists who only come once in a generation, and whose love for perfection make them unforgettable! His title and album ‘BANE‘ has become one of the most sold singles and albums in the history of African music; it combines warm lyrics, suave melody, and dancing rhythms only found in African cultures! Oliver N’Goma’s music transcends age, race, and gender… Oliver’s love of life could be felt in his music. He was a genius, whose music confered love, life, joy, and peace. Oliver, you will sorely be missed, but your music will remain with us forever. Love…
Although just a singer, Miriam Makeba decided that she could not stay without telling the world about the oppression suffered by her people at the hand of the apartheid government. So, with a small voice, she stood at the United Nations General Assembly in 1963 and delivered a speech where she exhorted the leaders of this world to act. In her own words, she said: “I ask all the leaders of the world: would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place, would you not resist if you were allowed no right in your own country because the color of your skin was different from the color of the rulers?”
Yes… that’s right! Alexander Pushkin, the father of modern Russian literature, was in reality Black. His great-grandfather was actually an African slave, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who later became a general to “Peter the Great”. The regional origin of Gannibal is often contested as it is often said that he was born in 1696 in the village of “Logon” in modern-day Eritrea (a statue of Pushkin was erected in Asmara in 2009), while others claim that he was from the Logone-Birni area in Cameroon (possibly from the Kotoko kingdom or the Kanem-Bornu Empire). Today, most agree that he was actually from Cameroon. Interestingly enough, Alexander himself was very proud of his African ancestry.
Alexander Pushkin
Just to give you a time frame, Pushkin lived from 1799 to 1837 in Russia, and even wrote a book about his great-grandfather entitled “Peter the Great’s Negro,” also known as “Blackamoor of Peter the Great.” He is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems, plays, mixing both drama and romance. Alexander Pushkin introduced Russia to all the European literary genres. He brought natural speech and foreign influences to create modern poetic Russian. Even though he lived a short life, he left examples of nearly every literary genre of his day: lyric poetry, narrative poetry, the novel, the short story, the drama, the critical essay, and even the personal letter. He lived a life entirely based on his favorite quote: “Live by the pen, die by the sword.” He lived a very provocative life, and was a real playboy. He died in a duel.
Pushkin’s monument in St Petersburg
Monuments have been erected in Russia, in St Petersburg, Moscow, and schools do carry his name. PBS did a piece on Frontline, entitled Pushkin Genealogy. It is said that Leo Tolstoy‘s book’s character Anna Karenina is based on Pushkin’s daughter (Maria Gartung), whom Tolstoy described as being extremely beautiful and intelligent. Check out some of his books on Amazon: Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Boris Godunov, and others… Check out Wikipedia to learn more about the father of modern Russian literature.
I have been so stricken by the recent tragedy in Haiti, that I thought it would only be fit to talk about Haiti, and celebrate the first Black independent nation in the western hemisphere, and in the world. What better way than to salute Toussaint Louverture, the great black general who defeated Napoleon’s army, and French, British, and Spaniards? What better way than to salute the genius of Toussaint! Think about this: Napoleon, one of the greatest generals that ever lived, being beaten by a… self-educated slave with no military training… being driven off the shores of Haiti by Toussaint who then led his country to independence.
Toussaint Louverture
Well, Toussaint Louverture was a military genius like none other. He was actually born a slave and worked on a plantation, and then earned his freedom. By the time the slave rebellion started, he did not want to join in at first; but later on joined the slave rebellion only to realize that their leaders were inept and would compromise with the white farmers. Toussaint rose through the ranks and became the undisputed leader of the rebellion. He also had two great generals under him: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, who would both later become presidents of Haiti.
Toussaint’s struggle was a struggle for freedom, equal rights, and justice for all. Having earned his freedom before, he knew what it meant to be free, and drafted a constitution. After sending out the French in Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti) in 1799, he turned to spanish Santo Domingo where slavery was still in effect, and took control of the entire island defeating the spaniards, and freeing the slaves. He then started to draft a constitution in 1801 for the entire island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic). The French, the Spanish, and even the Americans hated Toussaint, because of his effect on people. Imagine this: a Black leader freeing slaves, a nation where slaves had taken control of their destiny did not sit well with Americans who still owned slaves and could not bear such a news. By 1803, Napoleon ready to surrender Haiti, decided to meet with Toussaint on a peace deal; but the French tricked Toussaint, and when Toussaint came to the rendez-vous, he was arrested and taken to France by ship where he was put in the coldest prison of France. Toussaint, a tropic guy, died of cold and starvation in this prison.
Statue of Toussaint
The most important and beautiful about the story of Toussaint and Haiti, is that this was the first time a people rose up, an enslaved people rebelled and succeeded in getting their freedom, and in founding a country…. they were able to defeat the establishment. This is why Haiti is a treasure to the world. Haiti represents a people fighting for their rights, for their freedom, and for their voice to be heard. In the wake of this devastating earthquake, I know the Haitian people will rise from ashes just like the phoenix!
“Le cancer de la trahison” est le titre du discours prononcé par Amilcar Cabral (père de l’indépendance Cap-Verdienne et Bissau-Guinéenne) après l’annonce du decès de Kwame N’krumah, 1er président du Ghana. Dans ce discours, Cabral dénonce la trahison qui ronge les rangs de tous les mouvements indépendantistes africains. Nombreux de ces mouvements ou révolutions africaines ont été rongés par le cancer de la trahison. Triste de savoir que Amilcar Cabral lui-même a été assassiné par un traître!
African Heritage 