This journal was started in 1999 at the dawn of the 21st Century It was aimed at providing leading edge thinking on Africa and the diaspora issues at a time when a stale orthodoxy ruled the Black academy. At the time I had a full time role as partner in a City firm and the journeying around the world consequent on the launch of the first issue made a second issue impossible! However the need for an independent and…
Many US commentators seem to have lost all their scepticism. Their biases are so obvious in seeking any explanation. If the warrant states they are looking for documents these naive commentators assume this is genuine as opposed to the possible fact that this may be the only way to justify the warrant. Most spectacular is the general response to the leak that the FBI was using information from an inside source. Almost everyone seems to think this proves there…
This is a real internal US war and the players are some of US best tactical minds. With Jan 6 investigation creating a negative narrative and the possibilities of that narrative getting darker, Trump supporters had to do something. But here is the kicker ..these are not directly Trump supporters but anti-Biden and anti- neocons. We are faced with the neo-cons seeking to poison the wells, then creating a narrative that the US is beset by enemies and a…
What is the driving force of Nigerian politics and business?No part of the Nigerian elite has any faith or confidence in the future of Nigeria. Any person from abroad of Nigerian ancestry with visions for its future will be punished until they squeal in pain. For our elite, even believing in Nigeria’s future is an offence. This goes way back. I remember speaking to the editor of Abiola’s paper. I mentioned that I had a proposal that would turn…
Alex Mercouris and Alex Christoforou, on their platform The Duran, make some fundamental errors in their evaluation of the future options for the US. They argue that the US has nothing to fear from a reduction in their status. They also claim the `US was responsible for moving manufacturing to China and away from the US. These are two fundamental errors: firstly, the movement of manufacturing to China was not a move away from the US. The original competition…
Western commentators, particularly critical ones, are finding explanations of US policy to be puzzling. They then drift to suggestions that the US policy elite have lost their senses. This is always a poor option. What is the cause of this misunderstanding? It arises from thinking that these recent US policy actions are devoted to the external world. In fact, these actions are primarily designed as internal political actions. Pelosi on Taiwan: these actions are designed to prevent subsequent administrations…
We are often asked how Africa, with so many bright and intelligent people, can be so badly governed. This note is a brief essay on thinking carefully about this issue. Our first port of call is to understand that the damage done by an institution is not directly related to itself but to the context. An institution may do more harm than ever intended, particularly if by accident, the ability to reform escapes the community. Our first post-war generation…
Cynthia Miller-Idriss has recently addressed in Foreign Affairs (8 July 2022) the issue of mass shootings. Rather than focusing on the availability of arms she has indicted extremism as an immediate influence but identified mental health as the long time underlying context: ‘The alleged Buffalo shooter was referred for a psychiatric evaluation after telling his high school classmates he wanted to carry out mass violence, but he was released. When he graduated from high school two weeks later, investigators…
https://cardozo.yu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/scale_850x850/public/2020-04/KATE_SHAW_480-ret-flat-crop-8×8-HI-RES.jpg?itok=WgRhWvvd There was a popular phrase in the UK from 1980’s – ‘the loony left’. This was directed at the far left, such as members of the Trotskyite movement. However, the strange behaviour of what passes for a left in USA can be described as fairly ‘loony’, and, ironically, these persons and views are part of the Democratic mainstream. GUN CONTROL Somehow the American left have bought the idea that the availability of guns causes school massacres. This is…
‘ ‘… it is not a matter of belittling Ancient Egyptians, it is known of course they did not have any mathematics… ‘ Alicia Maravelia 17 June 2022 Maravelia made a presentation on ‘Of Eternity, Everlastingness and Stars’1. Among her primary claims were that: All mathematical astronomy began with the Greeks. She reads back into Ancient Egypt from the views of modern physics and views from the religion of Christianity and Judaism, seeing Ancient Egypt as a precursor; With…
In an FT interview on 9 May 2022 with Henry Kissinger ( Note1 ) Kissinger let the cat out of the bag. Eighty per cent of the Russian population lives in the European part and much of the Asian part of Russia was acquired recently he said. Here Kissinger is taking 1600’s as ‘recent history’. This suggests that he is seeking to get the Russians to see themselves as ‘European’ not Asian. On the basis that Russia is mostly…
