The BRCK: Internet Beyond Africa

An internet system has been built to address some of the connectivity problems in Africa. This system is often being described as internet built for Africa but this is a marginalizing description because the system is meant to be used everywhere. The fact that it was created in Kenya does not mean and should not mean that it is meant only for Africa.

 

Cyberwarriors As Medicine People

I have just been listening to a report, with significant flourish, about how some cyber warriors are currently being trained to fight America's future cyber wars. A cyberwarrior is of course the fancy name for hackers, people who have the ability to break into other people's computers without permission. The explicit purpose in training people who have the ability to do this is to protect America's computer systems from attacks, both domestic and foreign. This is similar to what soldiers are trained to do - to kill in order to defend the homeland from domestic and foreign enemies.

As I think about the matter, though, it seems to me that these cyberwarriors are similar to village medicine people. Village medicine people are people who have the ability to bring about healing from illnesses, both natural and those believed to have been brought upon the person by malevolent spiritual forces. The village medicine people are respected and feared - just like the hackers. While the medicine people can bring healing every villager knows that a line can hardly be drawn between the medicine people and witches. That is, the healer can actually inflict harm just like a witch would do. That is why the medicine people are treated with respect and fear - respect in that they heal and fear in that they may inflict harm.

In the report about the cyberwarriors, questions were asked about whether or not they would mind working for the National Security Administration (NSA). The explicit purpose of the NSA is to protect Americans but we have recently learned that the line cannot be drawn between protection and a police state in which what everyone does online is closely monitored. The NSA itself knows that this line can hardly be drawn, which is why it is supposed to carry out rigorous background check of all those who would work there. The NSA knows that all those who work there should be treated with a good those of respect and fear because a line cannot be drawn between the person who protects and the person who can inflict harm.

However, Americans do not seem to have this awareness - which is why they get very surprised when they hear that someone is listening to what they are saying. The fancy name "cyberwarrior" may give the false impression that they, like medicine people, are always on your side. However, just like the village medicine people, the line between the person who protects and the person who harms is not quite clear - in fact, if there is such a line, it belongs in the same person. Seeing the cyberwarriors as medicine people may enhance our understanding of what they are about.

Ancient African Scripts

Racism as Sickness of the Mind

Growing up in Cameroon, we were never taught either at home or at school that we were better than other people in the world - white, yellow, red, etc. However, as I progressed in school, I soon learned of apartheid in South Africa, then I learned of slavery and racial segregation in America. I read that white people were teaching their kids that they are better than all other people in the world. I went to school with kids whose parents were exiled from South Africa and Namibia because they were saying that white people were lying when they taught their kids that they were better than other people in the world in any way.

The older I get, however, the more I discover that this teaching has so infected the minds of some white people that it has now become a sickness of the mind. This sickness seems to be recently becoming fashionable - in Europe, a banana was thrown to a Black Brazilian player, Dani Alves, while in America racists are having a field day, stating how slavery had been good for Black people and how black people are only good to make one rich but not for public association. All of this makes me wonder whether this sickness of the mind is something that has a cure or if it is a sickness that only leads to death. I think parents ought to be ashamed of themselves when they teach their kids that they are better than other kids. I see people telling kids not to curse or use obscene language but at the same time they harbor this sickness in their hearts, this reprehensible sickness which is far greater than obscene language. Any person or people infected with this deadly disease ought to be worried about their sanity. It is a strange thing to watch other human beings and not to see them as human. Only a sick mind fails to notice a human being as human.

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria Should Resign

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria should resign. This call for his resignation has especially been prompted by the recent abduction of many girls from a school in Northern Nigeria that seems to have confounded the government of Nigeria. This is only the latest of a long line of events that have proven that the Nigerian government under Goodluck Jonathan is quite unable to protect its people - one of he central priorities of any government. What is worse is that since the recent abduction of these girls, the government of Nigeria does not appear to know what it is doing or will do to make sure that these girls are safely returned to their parents. Any government that does not take the lives of its people seriously enough to want to do everything to keep them safe is not supposed to be in power. Any government that has areas in its country where it cannot go because that area is under the authority of a different group of people is not fit to be in power. By this measure, Nigeria is not even a country because the government of the country does not control the territory it purports to govern.

Calling for the resignation of Goodluck Jonathan may appear to play into the hands of Boko Haram because that is in fact what the terrorist group wants. However, it is also the function of government to protect its people from terrorists. If the government of Nigeria under Goodluck Jonathan has been unable to do that, it is not fit to be in power. As things stand, Boko Haram is defeating the government. There is no respectable government in the world whose people will be abducted without the government making a statement to state what is being done to deal with the situation. Since Goodluck Jonathan appears too be losing Nigeria to Boko Haram, it is time he resigned so that someone who can take the fight to Boko Haram and protect the Nigerian people may become leader of the country.

On The Domestication of Easter

On the third day after my friend was murdered, some women came running into the village square, crying out that they met him on their way to the farm and he told them that he is no longer dead. He said that the government wanted to put him away but he would never be put away. The women said he told them that his physical presence in their midst no longer matters because his spirit would always be with them. The women said he told them that anyone who called upon his name would be healed. In fact, as they ran to the village to report what they had seen that morning, one of the women had slipped and broken her left foot but upon calling my friend's name the broken foot was healed. Many people flocked to the village square just as they had done when my friend first came to the village. Many of them were sick and on calling upon the name of my friend, they were healed.

When the government heard about all of this, it said that the people were becoming delusional. A law was passed that anyone caught calling the name of my friend would be jailed. Spies were placed in every corner of the village to report anyone caught speaking the name of my friend. Because of this law, so many people were jailed and some were even killed. When the government saw that the people would not stop calling upon the name of my friend, it scrapped the law and announced that the government would also be calling upon his name for help. The government made a day of rest in the name of my friend and ordered the people never to work on that day. The people became very happy with this and as time went on they began forgetting what my friend had taught them. They said that my friend had given his power to the government to protect them and that they needed to do as the government said. They forgot why the government had murdered him in the first place as they went on celebrating Easter. Thus, more and more people became sick and there was no one to heal them because the government still did not care for them. And so things returned in the village to what they had been before my friend came them. There are now four blind people begging at the village square.

My Friend Was Murdered Yesterday!

Today I am behind locked doors because I am sad and afraid. I am sad because the government murdered my good friend and afraid because the government is after all those who were close friends with him.

I first heard about him in the village. There was a commotion in the village and everyone was running into the village square. They said that a woman had met a man who told her about everything she had ever done. The people thought the man was one of those people with double pairs of eyes. In my village, people with double pairs of eyes are treated with fear and respect because these people see things which people with only a single pair of eyes do not see. (People with double pairs of eyes do not actually have two physical pairs of eyes; they have just one pair of eyes but the other pair is not seen, it is spiritual - that is why these people are believed to be able to see more than people with just a single pair of eyes.) So people flocked to him to ask him questions about themselves. I was one of the people who flocked to the market square.

As we got there, he started talking about God. He said that he had been sent by God to heal people who are sick and help people live well. He said that it is not the will of God that some are born blind, lame, hungry,  barren, etc. He said that it was not the will of God that people should be fighting against each other, wasting the energy God has given them to put to good use. I listened to him carefully and, as he was talking, he went towards Mr. Try. Mr. Try was the blind beggar who often sat at the village square and he has been blind for as long as I could remember. He lifted his right had and with a couple of fingers, touched Mr. Try's eyes. From that time Mr. Try could see. The crowd burst into celebration. That was my first encounter with my now murdered friend.

I started following him as he trekked from village to village teaching, healing, and feeding people. As he went about doing these things, we started hearing rumors that the government was looking for him. They said that the government was looking for him because he was holding rallies without permit and that was illegal. The government said that he should stop gathering people together because that could easily lead to disturbance. The fact of the matter, however, was that he did not gather people. People followed him instead. So many were sick and troubled in many ways and the government did not even care about what was going on with the people. But my friend cared for them. He always looked sad and disturbed when he saw people suffering and he always attempted to relieve their suffering. That is why people followed him. He did not even call people. People just heard about him and followed.

Soon, people started saying that the government had sent the police to arrest him. The government said that he had broken the law that states that no one should hold rallies without permit. He told us that the government was looking for a way to kill him because the government does not like people who care about human life. That is why the government is full of corruption and deceit, he said. He said that the governing authority is full of cunning and deceit, looking after its own interest rather than the interest of the people. He said that the government was looking to kill him because the good things he does is against what the government stands for. The government thought he may make the people aware that they needed to be treated with dignity. The government was afraid of him and so they wanted to put him out of the way.

On Thursday, after he was done healing and teaching and as we were about to look for a place to sleep, a group of police came and said that my friend was under arrest. They said that they had evidence that my friend was plotting to overthrow the government and that was treason. People who commit treason are to be executed. We thought we were dreaming. They took him away. But I followed from a distance. They took him to the place where the government confines people who are to be hung for treason. I sat outside just nearby, watching what would happen to him. Then suddenly I fell asleep.

On Friday morning, I was awoken by the commotion as people came to watch those who were being put to death by the government. The police drove back the crowd and so I watched from a distance. They built the execution stage where the men were to be hung. My friend was one of the first to be put to death. They stood him on the stage, placed a bag on his head and a noose around his neck. I heard a scream and his body dangled, lifeless. "Let this be a warning to all of you," the police spokesman said, "who think of overthrowing the government. We are coming after you."

To me, this was murder because my friend had done nothing wrong.

Good Friday and the Death of Hope

Last week I received the sad news of the death of one of my very close friends in Cameroon, Valentine Finke. We had grown up together and we played together as little kids. At one point, while we were growing up together, we were so hungry one afternoon that we ate some unfamiliar fruits we saw on a tree on our way back from school. The fruit turned out to be poisonous and we almost died. We survived, however, and went on to graduate from primary school, secondary school, high school, and then college (University). Well, Valentine (Vally, as I called him) did not actually graduate from college because during our time there he lost his mind. He lost his mind when we were about twenty years old or so and by the time he died at about the age of forty-two, he had not recovered. Valentine's life makes me wonder about what would have been. His is just one such lives that make me wonder about what would have been. In Cameroon and many other places in Africa and around the world, so many lives end like Valentine's. Sometimes we see a future in our minds and try to pursue that future but the future never comes; our hope dies in a very ruthless manner.

I want to suggest that for Christians Good Friday is the day to remember all those whose lives did not turn out to be what we had hoped. Good Friday is the day to remember the triumph of uselessness and waste, the uselessness and waste of so many promising lives. Because Christians are situated within the doctrine of providence, they hardly spend time (tarry) on the question of lost hopes. Good Friday is simply seen as a prelude to Easter Sunday, a day when we know that things will turn out alright when Christ is raised from the dead on Easter Sunday. Because Christians now know that there is an Easter, the gravity of Good Friday hardly registers. That in the world there are countless useless, hopeless, and unjustified deaths, is hardly reflected upon. But I would like us to wait, to tarry on Good Friday and dedicate this day to all those whose lives have been cut short, and whose dreams died prematurely. Good Friday is the day when hope for the future died. It still remains the case for many in spite of Easter Sunday. Today, many parents in South Korea mourn the deaths of school children in a ferry. Perhaps those kids might have amounted to something in the future. Perhaps.

This hopelessness is what the first Christians experienced and it is reflected in a text that is often read on Easter Sunday, Luke 24:13ff. This is the story about two of the followers of Jesus who were returning home, deeply disappointed and saddened after the crucifixion of Jesus. They had hoped that Jesus was to redeem Israel but, alas, it was not to be. That is how the followers of Jesus experienced his death. Think of those followers of Jesus who had died on the same Friday, like Jesus, or on the following day, Saturday, and who never heard about the resurrection! His death was an event that had killed the hopes they had. That is what Good Friday means and I hope we tarry to meditate on this before moving on in a hurry to speak of Easter. On the first Good Friday, no one knew about Easter. All the followers of Jesus knew was that what they had hoped would happen had been aborted. That is the story of life for many in a world where life is being squeezed out of many on a daily basis and, in many cases, by Christians. Today is a hopeless day. It will continue to be so for many in our world. Valentine's story is just one of the countless wasted lives in our careless world. Good Friday should remind us of this.

Africa in the Map of the World Measured By Wealth

The following map is supposed to be a map of the world when the world is represented by the wealth of continents rather than by landmass. In the map Africa is like a tale attached to Europe and that depiction has far more truth to it than it seems. The problem with the picture, however, is that it does not adequately measure the wealth of the continent. The continent has far more wealth. What the map adequately depicts is that this wealth is not in the hands of Africans. Thus, the continent is squeezed into a spaghetti, as it can be seen in the map. What the map shows is how Africa is squeezed by the power players in the world.

Is Genocide Still Possible in Rwanda?

Twenty years ago there was a massacre, a genocide in Rwanda that bruised the conscience of Africa and the world. For the past twenty years, the memory of that dastardly event has especially marked the history of Rwanda. If memory of such tragedies is to help us not to repeat them, then it does not appear that remembering the deaths that took place in Rwanda this time twenty years ago is serving that purpose well. The reason for this is simple: the conditions that made for genocide in Rwanda twenty years ago are still with us today. In his perceptive essay about structural violence in Rwanda on the eve of the genocide, Peter Uvin laments how on the eve of the genocide, Rwanda was being touted as the jewel of progress in Africa even as the elite was subjecting the people to injurious lives. A similar thing is happening today as the West is touting Paul Kagame's Rwanda as the cleanest country in Africa even as he is silencing his critiques by death, threats of death, and imprisonment. The genocide in Rwanda was perpetrated by political and economic exclusion, by the perception of one group of people as the rightful heirs to Rwanda, as other groups were marginalized. This basic tendency has not gone away under Paul Kagame. Machiavelli might have said that a leader should rather be feared than loved and Kagame may think this is a good idea. However, people are prevented from killing each other not by fear but by the perception that their destinies are intertwined. By running opponents aground, Kagame is not doing much to stave off the possibility of a future genocide. Rwanda may be clean but the politics still stinks.

See Peter Uvin, "Development Aid and Structural Violence: The Case of Rwanda," Development, vol. 42 no. 3 (September 1999).

Problematizing the Caine Prize for African Writing

A very interesting piece on a luring prize for aspiring African writers.

Gay Marriage, the Archbishop, and the Lives of African Christians

The debate about the place of gay people in the church became especially heated when the American Episcopal church ordained the practicing gay man, Gene Robinson, as Bishop. Since then, there has been splits in the Episcopal Church in America and the Anglican Church has been debating how well to address the issue of the status of gay people in the church. In fact, some Episcopal Churches in America have since decided to align themselves with conservative churches in Africa that have been strongly against acknowledging the existence of homosexuals.

The latest manifestation of this debate currently deals with the issue of whether or not the Anglican Church should sanction gay marriage. It is the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. Justin Welby, to this recent debate that has occasioned this post. According to the Archbishop, the lives of Christians around the world, especially those in Africa, would be put in danger if the Anglican Church accepts gay marriage. Thus, the argument about whether or not the church should recognize gay marriage is not theological but practical - to save the lives of Christians in other places around the world, such as Africa.

This argument would have been a really good argument if the Western Church has a good record of protecting the lives of Christians in Africa. This has however not been the case as the Western Church, especially the Church of England, has generally stood by as its governments have initiated and support many policies in Africa that have sapped the lives of many Christians. When it comes to the relationship between Western and African governments, especially relationships in which Western governments support dictators in Africa, the church in the West has generally been silent because it also benefits from such uneven relationships. This leads me to think that the Western Church does not generally worry about the well-being of Christians in Africa; what it worries about is its own well-being. Just like individuals, the Church generally seems to be guided by the self-preserving impulse.

I therefore wonder why the Most Reverend would use African Christians as a means to advocate the non-acceptance  of gay marriage by the Anglican Church. The reason that this would negatively affect African Christians is just a public transcript because the Anglican Church does not generally make decisions based on how it would affect African Christians. The real reason has therefore not been spoken.

Moreover, arguing that accepting gay marriage would put the lives of African Christians at risk is not a logically consistent argument. First, those who are against Christians are not against Christians because Christians approve or disapprove certain lifestyles; they are against Christians as Christians. For them, it is a bad idea to be a Christian because being a Christian comes with a host of implications - gay marriage would only be one of them - and not the most devastating one at that. For Boko Haram in Nigeria, for example, the issue is Western education - Christianity is linked to Western education and other Western lifestyles. So because Boko Haram thinks Western education is bad, should Christians stop supporting it because they risk their lives doing so? To use another example, should the administration of Polio vaccines in Nigeria be stopped because some people have been killing nurses who administer them due to the belief that Polio vaccines are a means to sterilize Africans?

Finally, to withdraw support from something because it would put the lives of some people at risk is especially a bad argument because it would require that our conviction be based on whether or not it is safe to hold such a conviction. Thus, when holding a particular position would put the lives of some people at risk, we would need to withdraw our support for such position. If this argument had been followed, the Church itself would not have developed because, for the first Christians, being a Christian was a dangerous and risky proposition.

The Most Rev. might have many reasons why he does not like the Anglican Church to accept gay marriage. The risk to African Christians is not one of them.

Wall Street and the New Witch-Finders

Anthropologists have recently alerted us to the idea that witchcraft discourses are sometimes reflections of exploitative tendencies in both national and international political economy. Those who suffer from such exploitation are often the already dispossessed who imagine their dispossession in the language of witchcraft. Witchcraft discourses therefore attempt to name the flighty, the complex and the complicated - that which does not lend itself to easy grasp. That international economics, and especially the market, work like invisible phenomena are now no secret, especially since reports are now circulating to the effect that those who engineer the stock market in the United States are intent on making the process look magical, hiding behind the complex process to fleece other traders. This complex, exploitative process which affects the dispossessed all over the world could be calibrated as witchcraft (bad witchcraft).

The presence of witchcraft often leads to the emergence of witch-finders of all stripes. The stock market version of witch-finders is the group of people who have been recently described in Flash Boys. They are intent on demystifying the secretive technological witchcraft in order to limit the rampant exploitation. Just as is to be expected in all cases where witches are exposed, the story goes that the witches of Wall Street have not been happy. The witches seem to be after the witch-finders.

However, it is also the case that the distance between witches and witch-finders is often not a long one, so that witch-finders sometimes become witches themselves. It is our hope that the witch-finders would not become the witches in this case. Because witch-finders may become witches themselves, we often suspect the witch-finders. Such should be the case with the story of Flash Boys. Are they for real or are they in the process of joining the witches?