African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions

Description

An insightful and comprehensive compilation of the year’s events, this record offers in-the-moment comment and analysis as well as informed reflection on the 2011 African uprisings. While the tumultuous uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts, the concurrent rebellions in Benin, Gabon, Senegal, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, and in other parts of the African continent have gone virtually unnoticed. Arguing that these disturbances are the result of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions, and impoverishment of the majority, this account provides an overview of the struggle for democratization, which constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for all. Front Cover Copyright Contents About the contributors 1 African awakenings: the courage to invent the future 2 The never-ending revolution: perspectives from the African blogosphere 3 Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire: history, interests and parallels 4 Tunisia: the fall of the West’s little dictator 5 Gabon’s lords of poverty 6 Tunisia’s revolution: self-organisation for self-emancipation 7 Aslema ya Tunis, au revoir Ben Ali 8 Tunisia and Egypt: revolutions without self-proclaimed revolutionaries 9 Egypt: free at last, an inside look 10 Chronicles of an Egyptian revolution: a protester’s first-hand account 11 Egypt and the revolution in our minds 12 Egypt: women of the revolution 13 ‘The power is within us’: a protest diary from Cameroon 14 Uganda elections: ‘an exercise in shame-faced endorsement’ 15 Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire: the impact on women 16 Awakening protests in Morocco and Western Sahara 17 Peoples’ revolts in Burkina Faso 18 North African dispatches: why Algeria is different 19 Libya: behind the politics of humanitarian intervention 20 Swaziland: uprising in the slipstream of North Africa 21 The lies behind the West’s war on Libya 22 South Africa: on the murder of Andries Tatane 23 Unrest in Algeria: the window is closing fast 24 Whose dictator is Gaddafi? 25 An African reflection on Tahrir Square 26 How might things move forward in Libya? 27 The Tunisian revolution did not come out of nowhere 28 Imperial neurosis and the dangers of ‘humanitarian’ interventionism 29 International financial institutions and Egypt 30 Neoliberal threats to North Africa 31 2011: an Arab springtime? 32 Libya – the true costs of war Appendix – Further readings from Pambazuka News Index Back Cover