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 Angela Davis appeared on Democracy Now on 28 December 2021. It is with some hesitation that I seriously criticise Angela Davis. She was asked about the younger generations’ lack of interest in the struggles of the past and dismissals of her as irrelevant.  Of course, she is not irrelevant.  I still remember my first days at Clare College, Cambridge and choosing how to decorate my room. A poster of ‘FREE ANGELA DAVIS’  was placed in the most prominent place….

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Mishra is a celebrated author and journalist. He is the winner of many prizes and additionally writes for The Guardian. If he reviews a work by Fanon in the New Yorker (6 Dec 2021), there must be some anticipation of interesting observations. Is our anticipation rewarded? It is a little unedifying that he begins the review by quoting Sartre and then a review by Hannah Arendt before even mentioning anything by Fanon. He states that Fanon’s renown was based…

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Confucius was asked what would be the first thing he did if he was ever granted power. He answered: ‘rectify words’. It is neither Rittenhouse nor the jury verdict that is a sign of US cultural collapse. Matters like that have a long history in the US. We need only reference Rodney King.  What reveals the decline is the loss of correct word usage. Anders Walker (Note 1) describes the events and refers to the specific local law in…

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There was an impressive talk by Jim Downs about both the African contribution to epidemiology and its forceful elimination from the Western historical record. Apart from its own matter of interest Jim Down’s presentation thoroughly reveals a serious issue with contemporary Black scholarship. Many of the presenter’s at ASWAD talk of themselves as the first of a new generation of Black scholars inhabiting the halls of the Academy. This is a serious matter. It conceals two great and profound…

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During ASWAD conference there was constant reference to Walter Rodney almost as a sanctified person. There was uncritical adulation. This is entirely unsatisfactory, particularly from an academic environment. There is an element of irresponsibility here: what do we have to learn from his life? What did he do/say/write that was wrong and what was right? These are fundamental questions that people avoid asking. I attended a memorial for Rodney many years ago and during the question time I raised…

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ASWAD held  a significant conference 4-6 Nov 2021 on contemporary African and Diaspora thought. One of the panel focusses was on: ‘Transgressive Bodies and Sexualities in Black Diaspora.’   The panelists were: Bruno Santana, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brasil Megg Rayara, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brasil Andrea Allen, University of Toronto Joshua Reason, University of Pennsylvania Strangely they made no effort to seek historical origins or to find historical echoes in ancient Africa. While objecting to a current framing they…

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There has been a very constructive conference ICTA (International Conference on Tax in Africa) held by ATAF ( African Tax Administration Forum). Contrary to many expectations in the world of Tax, Africa is aware and planning for the future and seeking applications for utilising advance tech, such as blockchain, for improving tax administration. On several occasions senior tax administration officials complained about the bad advice given by foreigners associated with international and multilateral aid organisations. This is serious. Dr…

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Jean-Marc Sauve has written about the sexual abuse of children by the Catholic Church over many decades. His report estimated that 350,000 children over the years have been subject to sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church since the 1950’s. “The most terrible thing for me was to see the most absolute evil – the attack on the physical and psychological integrity of children – that is to say a work of death, perpetrated by people whose mission…

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Matt Stoller comes from the anti-monopolist tradition in America. Given the strident screams of neo-liberal ideology that any constraint on business is bad, this sounds like a positive economic position. However, there is more to this than first appears. Matt manages to link the anti-trust issues to anti-China issues. This step involves some extraordinary footwork. But the clue to this may lie in his statement that one cannot be heard in Congress or taken seriously at high levels of…

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  Biden stated in his speech after the bombing at Kabul airport: ‘We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down. We will make you pay’… (Note 1) You may have missed the hysterical absurdity of threatening to hunt down a suicide bomber and make him pay. Even the hypothetical threat of following them beyond the grave would not work as he/she will not believe the Americans and they are going to the same place….

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