Bush Could Score Points in Africa
By Bashir Goth
The Current Discussion: The G-8 summit is Bush's last hurrah as a world leader. What's one thing he can do to strengthen his legacy?
If there is one thing that President Bush can achieve in the dying days of his presidency, it should involve Africa. Everything else seems to be complex and too messed up to even think of fixing in the time available. Regarding the Arab-Israeli issue, it is obvious that Bush cannot undo in six months a problem that is sixty years old. He must have encountered the insurmountable walls of the Middle East peace during his two-term presidency. His trusted State Secretary’s frequent visits and proverbial skills couldn’t put the Middle East’s Humpty Dumpty together again.
The situation in Afghanistan and Iraq could also be added to the Humpty basket although history may treat the situation of these two countries differently long after the Bush era is gone.
One place however that Bush can score highly and pragmatically is Africa. As food and fuel prices spiral and the worry about impending and continent-wide hunger adds more burden on the already stretched economies of Africa, Bush can initiate an African agricultural revolution by initiating a Marshall Plan to provide necessary equipment and expertise to African farmers to increase both the quality and quantity of their produce and their competitiveness in world markets.
READ MORE Newsweek/Washington Post/PostGlobal
Friday, July 11, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
UN Condemnation Too Little, Too Late
By Bashir Goth
Although one has to be delighted about this unprecedented unanimous condemnation of Robert Mugabe, one cannot also ignore that this has come too little too late. The world has been watching this African tyrant rob his people of their last dignity and turn a country that was once described as Africa’s bread basket into destitution. As I had stated in an earlier piece on Zimbabwe, the world knew that Zimbabwe was deteriorating into another African tragedy.
Since he came to political prominence in the 1960s, Mugabe was always concerned about Mugabe. Relying on the majority force of his Shona tribe, he eliminated the late Joshua Nkomo, a man known as Father Zimbabwe and the founder of the first freedom movement. In the 1980s he massacred 20,000 Ndebele civilians, Nkomo’s tribe, to declare himself as an autocrat. Mugabe considers himself a divine ruler who only God can remove from rule; he cannot allow a novice politician from his own Shona tribe to challenge him when he has subdued the independence heroes from the Ndebele.
Newsweek/Washington Post/PostGlobal
By Bashir Goth
Although one has to be delighted about this unprecedented unanimous condemnation of Robert Mugabe, one cannot also ignore that this has come too little too late. The world has been watching this African tyrant rob his people of their last dignity and turn a country that was once described as Africa’s bread basket into destitution. As I had stated in an earlier piece on Zimbabwe, the world knew that Zimbabwe was deteriorating into another African tragedy.
Since he came to political prominence in the 1960s, Mugabe was always concerned about Mugabe. Relying on the majority force of his Shona tribe, he eliminated the late Joshua Nkomo, a man known as Father Zimbabwe and the founder of the first freedom movement. In the 1980s he massacred 20,000 Ndebele civilians, Nkomo’s tribe, to declare himself as an autocrat. Mugabe considers himself a divine ruler who only God can remove from rule; he cannot allow a novice politician from his own Shona tribe to challenge him when he has subdued the independence heroes from the Ndebele.
Newsweek/Washington Post/PostGlobal
Sunday, June 15, 2008
PostGlobal Takes the World's Pulse
By Bashir Goth
The Current Discussion:PostGlobal celebrates its second birthday this week. Is there a growing global agenda -- that is, an agenda of issues being discussed that affects the world rather than individual countries? Or are local concerns still paramount?
PostGlobal has tackled local issues with global perspective. Realizing the need for a common understanding of world issues, this international debate forum has ushered in a new genre of innovative popular journalism. A kind of a unified voice in diversity, a media outlet where writers of different cultural backgrounds find a level playing field to express the anger, the frustration, the suffering, the development, the thinking, the cultural misconceptions and the stifled political views of their communities as well as shared human desires for justice, freedom and understanding.
PostGlobal has become a forum to air the voice of the silent majority; to reach out to readers across the cultural divide and to give them the opportunity to know the mind of the Other; to help them understand that the common desire for universal justice, freedom and respect for human dignity makes the notion of Us versus Them obsolete.
READ MORE in Washington Post's PostGlobal.
By Bashir Goth
The Current Discussion:PostGlobal celebrates its second birthday this week. Is there a growing global agenda -- that is, an agenda of issues being discussed that affects the world rather than individual countries? Or are local concerns still paramount?
PostGlobal has tackled local issues with global perspective. Realizing the need for a common understanding of world issues, this international debate forum has ushered in a new genre of innovative popular journalism. A kind of a unified voice in diversity, a media outlet where writers of different cultural backgrounds find a level playing field to express the anger, the frustration, the suffering, the development, the thinking, the cultural misconceptions and the stifled political views of their communities as well as shared human desires for justice, freedom and understanding.
PostGlobal has become a forum to air the voice of the silent majority; to reach out to readers across the cultural divide and to give them the opportunity to know the mind of the Other; to help them understand that the common desire for universal justice, freedom and respect for human dignity makes the notion of Us versus Them obsolete.
READ MORE in Washington Post's PostGlobal.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Somaliland overrides 17 years of underestimation
By Bashir Goth
Come 15th of May and they have sworn on hell breaking lose; the naysayers. They trumpeted, with weird satisfaction, the imminent death of the Somaliland’s dream; the doom prophets. They misjudged our people’s wisdom, derided our nation’s resolve and underestimated their history; hired spin doctors. They used all kinds of scare tactics: tribal cards, myopic and jaundiced geopolitical theories, and marshaled all slander expletives in the book; the fifth columnists. They tried to rubbish our peace and stability and our homegrown democratic process as a child’s play before ensuing tantrums; blog pundits. They mistook our political debates as gathering death clouds over our skies; the hate mongers. They predicted doom, death and disarray; all Somaliland enemies.
But to their great disappointment 15th of May has come and gone and they saw Somaliland still standing as peaceful as ever, as stable as ever, as resolved as ever, as ambitious as ever and as wise as ever to put their house in order and to forge ahead with even greater tenacity to sustain their democracy, strengthen their institutions and maintain the international image they have earned as “Africa’s Best Kept Secret.”
With their government, their opposition leaders, their elders and the whole people, Somaliland has again proved wrong those who misread its democratic debate as political crisis and sang for the collapse of what they had sworn to be another myth of a much hyped bubble of an African success story.
Somaliland has once more set a brilliant example of how a small and unrecognized African country can resolve its conflicts; maintain its peace and stability and hold a robust democratic debate with all its labor pains without any foreign help, without Security Council decisions, without foreign mediation efforts, without regional reconciliation conferences and without expensive peacekeeping forces.
Read more Washington Post/PostGlobal.
By Bashir Goth
Come 15th of May and they have sworn on hell breaking lose; the naysayers. They trumpeted, with weird satisfaction, the imminent death of the Somaliland’s dream; the doom prophets. They misjudged our people’s wisdom, derided our nation’s resolve and underestimated their history; hired spin doctors. They used all kinds of scare tactics: tribal cards, myopic and jaundiced geopolitical theories, and marshaled all slander expletives in the book; the fifth columnists. They tried to rubbish our peace and stability and our homegrown democratic process as a child’s play before ensuing tantrums; blog pundits. They mistook our political debates as gathering death clouds over our skies; the hate mongers. They predicted doom, death and disarray; all Somaliland enemies.
But to their great disappointment 15th of May has come and gone and they saw Somaliland still standing as peaceful as ever, as stable as ever, as resolved as ever, as ambitious as ever and as wise as ever to put their house in order and to forge ahead with even greater tenacity to sustain their democracy, strengthen their institutions and maintain the international image they have earned as “Africa’s Best Kept Secret.”
With their government, their opposition leaders, their elders and the whole people, Somaliland has again proved wrong those who misread its democratic debate as political crisis and sang for the collapse of what they had sworn to be another myth of a much hyped bubble of an African success story.
Somaliland has once more set a brilliant example of how a small and unrecognized African country can resolve its conflicts; maintain its peace and stability and hold a robust democratic debate with all its labor pains without any foreign help, without Security Council decisions, without foreign mediation efforts, without regional reconciliation conferences and without expensive peacekeeping forces.
Read more Washington Post/PostGlobal.
The Affordable Chinese
By Bashir Goth
China makes into way to the hearts and minds of developing countries by building roads, sports stadiums, national theatres and water wells. Chinese businessmen come to Africa, for example, with a spade, hammer and cash in one hand and their cheap merchandise and business deals in the other. Mention America, and people will immediately think of its firepower; mention China, and people will point at everything they use in their homes, offices and farms.
Read More in Washington Post/PostGlobal.
By Bashir Goth
China makes into way to the hearts and minds of developing countries by building roads, sports stadiums, national theatres and water wells. Chinese businessmen come to Africa, for example, with a spade, hammer and cash in one hand and their cheap merchandise and business deals in the other. Mention America, and people will immediately think of its firepower; mention China, and people will point at everything they use in their homes, offices and farms.
Read More in Washington Post/PostGlobal.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Welcome winds of change across the dark continent
BY BASHIR GOTH (Inside Africa
FROM Darfur to Zimbabwe and from Somalia to the Great Lakes, there is a new wind of change blowing over Africa. Looking at the map of the continent, one may conclude that Africa is destined to bleed.
If not by foreign powers pillaging its wealth and robbing its future workforce, it is home grown tyrants that suck its blood and derive pleasure in teasing the hungry populace with the bare bones. If not by natural disasters, it is by inter-clan fratricides stoked by power thirsty sycophants and clans fighting over meagre resources.
Yes, it is a continent whose own leaders turn into its tormentors. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is one of a long line of African dictators who refused to leave power until they saw their countries turn to ashes. Among them were Siyad Barre of Somalia, Mubuto Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, and Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia and others.
These dictators have been removed in violent revolutions. Not revolutions based on noble ideologies and mesmerising slogans, but revolutions built on years of hunger, dashed dreams, prolonged frustrations and people deprived of every shred of a decent life.
As soon as the euphoria of independence ended, the African masses realised how they traded a foreign occupier with a less urbane and more ruthless native occupier. But most of the continent’s people had to wait another generation to find the right atmosphere to stage another struggle of liberation; this time not against a white coloniser but a brutal local squatter cloaked in a hero’s uniform.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, African dictators have lost their benefactors of the Cold War and the continent was destined for a new wind of change. Inspired by the people’s revolt against the communist tyrants in Eastern Europe and empowered by the freedom ushered in by globalisation and the Internet, the African people moved to reclaim their due rights for a decent living.
Like all dictators in history, it was only through force that African dictators who drew their staying power from the Cold War and ran their countries through repressive regimes based on a policy of divide and rule, favouritism and massive corruption could have been removed from power.
READ MORE in Khaleej Times
BY BASHIR GOTH (Inside Africa
FROM Darfur to Zimbabwe and from Somalia to the Great Lakes, there is a new wind of change blowing over Africa. Looking at the map of the continent, one may conclude that Africa is destined to bleed.
If not by foreign powers pillaging its wealth and robbing its future workforce, it is home grown tyrants that suck its blood and derive pleasure in teasing the hungry populace with the bare bones. If not by natural disasters, it is by inter-clan fratricides stoked by power thirsty sycophants and clans fighting over meagre resources.
Yes, it is a continent whose own leaders turn into its tormentors. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is one of a long line of African dictators who refused to leave power until they saw their countries turn to ashes. Among them were Siyad Barre of Somalia, Mubuto Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, and Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia and others.
These dictators have been removed in violent revolutions. Not revolutions based on noble ideologies and mesmerising slogans, but revolutions built on years of hunger, dashed dreams, prolonged frustrations and people deprived of every shred of a decent life.
As soon as the euphoria of independence ended, the African masses realised how they traded a foreign occupier with a less urbane and more ruthless native occupier. But most of the continent’s people had to wait another generation to find the right atmosphere to stage another struggle of liberation; this time not against a white coloniser but a brutal local squatter cloaked in a hero’s uniform.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, African dictators have lost their benefactors of the Cold War and the continent was destined for a new wind of change. Inspired by the people’s revolt against the communist tyrants in Eastern Europe and empowered by the freedom ushered in by globalisation and the Internet, the African people moved to reclaim their due rights for a decent living.
Like all dictators in history, it was only through force that African dictators who drew their staying power from the Cold War and ran their countries through repressive regimes based on a policy of divide and rule, favouritism and massive corruption could have been removed from power.
READ MORE in Khaleej Times
An open letter to Somaliland
By Bashir Goth
An open letter to:
- President Dahir Rayale Kahin, President of Somaliland
- Chairman Ahmed Mohammed Silanyo, Chairman of Kulmiye party
- Chairman Faisal Ali Waraabe, Chairman of UCID party
- Speakers of the houses and Members of the two houses
- Somaliland Election Commission
- People of Somaliland
In Somaliland, peace is our home. Our people have realized this 18 years ago when they reclaimed their sovereignty in the conference of Burao. Emerging from a bloody and disastrous war, the wise men who met in Burao came to the conclusion that only by shaking hands with each other, by forgetting and forgiving each other in keeping with the resourceful norms and values of our culture that they could move forward to build a nation. And a nation they built that is the envy of many African states; a nation that has been deservedly known as the “Africa’s Best Kept Secret.”
Our people have put peace first, peace second and peace third. They realized that one can sleep on an empty stomach at a place he calls home but one cannot call home a place where he cannot sleep in peace. It was the people, not politicians who made this peace, and it is again the people and not politicians who will safeguard it.
So beware,
The people are watching you. They tolerate your squabbles, your petty barbs, your internal bickering and your exchange of insults. They know that you are still taking your first childhood steps in the process of democracy and they give you allowance to make mistakes.
So beware,
But you must not test the people’s patience. Try not to stretch your childish tantrums beyond the tolerable boundaries. The great offence that any politician can commit is to insult the intelligence of the people. You may insult each other, rip each other to pieces, and smear each other’s reputations if you wish, but don’t dare you involve our people in your personal mudslinging campaigns.
So beware,
READ MORE in Awdalnews Network
By Bashir Goth
An open letter to:
- President Dahir Rayale Kahin, President of Somaliland
- Chairman Ahmed Mohammed Silanyo, Chairman of Kulmiye party
- Chairman Faisal Ali Waraabe, Chairman of UCID party
- Speakers of the houses and Members of the two houses
- Somaliland Election Commission
- People of Somaliland
In Somaliland, peace is our home. Our people have realized this 18 years ago when they reclaimed their sovereignty in the conference of Burao. Emerging from a bloody and disastrous war, the wise men who met in Burao came to the conclusion that only by shaking hands with each other, by forgetting and forgiving each other in keeping with the resourceful norms and values of our culture that they could move forward to build a nation. And a nation they built that is the envy of many African states; a nation that has been deservedly known as the “Africa’s Best Kept Secret.”
Our people have put peace first, peace second and peace third. They realized that one can sleep on an empty stomach at a place he calls home but one cannot call home a place where he cannot sleep in peace. It was the people, not politicians who made this peace, and it is again the people and not politicians who will safeguard it.
So beware,
The people are watching you. They tolerate your squabbles, your petty barbs, your internal bickering and your exchange of insults. They know that you are still taking your first childhood steps in the process of democracy and they give you allowance to make mistakes.
So beware,
But you must not test the people’s patience. Try not to stretch your childish tantrums beyond the tolerable boundaries. The great offence that any politician can commit is to insult the intelligence of the people. You may insult each other, rip each other to pieces, and smear each other’s reputations if you wish, but don’t dare you involve our people in your personal mudslinging campaigns.
So beware,
READ MORE in Awdalnews Network
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