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In South Sudan there have been some faltering attempts to negotiate a truce, the government (with encouragement from Ethiopia and Kenya) has offered a cease-fire and the release of the majority of the politicians arrested over the coup plot but government forces are still advancing on Bentiu. The rebels have reacted cautiously demanding that any ceasefire is internationally monitored. Last week the Daily Beast ran an op-ed piece by The Daily Beast posted:President Salva Kiir has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership by following up on his offer of dialogue with his opponents, releasing political prisoners, appealing for calm through television and radio, and pressing those troops that remain loyal to not commit human rights abuses. Should the president indicate a willingness to openly discuss the deep political grievances that are driving the violence, and do so inclusively, that would send a strong signal that peace is possible. The leading rebel, former Vice President Riek Machar, must stop inflaming the situation by calling for the ouster of the current government and indicate his willingness to negotiate with President Kiir and work within the rule of law for the restoration of an inclusive government and elections in 2015. I'm bringing this up because Daniel Howden, the journalist on the ground in Juba who collected the eye witness reports I linked earlier in the thread, wrote an absolutely scathing take-down of Prendergast and Co that calls out just about everyone for glossing over Kiir's growing authoritarianism and the fact that this whole crisis may very well have started because he arrested some opposition politicians for no reason. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says (especially about the partition of Sudan being some kind of international plot) but it's well worth a read for a dissenting opinion: quote:When Kiir sacked his entire government to pre-empt a political power grab by his vice-president, Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer, from South Sudan's second most populous group, the international community chided him half-heartedly. As both sides mobilised their supporters along ethnic lines and prepared for a renewed conflict, the UN and diplomats continued to refer to the increasingly autocratic president as "steadfast". http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/28/reality-of-south-sudan-and-hollywood-stars?CMP=twt_gu kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 28, 2013 23:20
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As far as I've understood, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the biggest problems in Africa is the weak state of government authority or the state in general. I'm not just talking about completely failed states a la Somalia, but weak central auhtorities in general. States have problems collecting taxes, allow half-independent militias to form and have extremely regionalist politicians who care mostly about their own province. Because of this people don't identify as much with their country, but with their nationality and religion. A book I read on the history of Afghanistan had a pretty funny anecdote: a village elder was assigned to collect taxes for the goverment. The man refused, saying that he saw no point in giving away money to some people far away in Kabul who he didn't even know personally. To him, Afghanistan as a country didn't really exist. Have any of you people living in Africa encountered something like this? And yes, I know that in police states like Eritrea the weakness of the state, at least when it comes to the monopoly of brute force, isn't a problem.
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Dec 29, 2013 16:16
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That's the problem in states like Somalia, most of the time the state is doing just fine in achieving it's main goal: "let's steal money" "how much money?" " All of it. All of the money."
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Dec 29, 2013 17:03
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Sounds like someone should create a force of militant accountants to help keep the books in places like this.
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Dec 29, 2013 22:07
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Intel5 posted:Sounds like someone should create a force of militant accountants to help keep the books in places like this. Stop trying to steal my book ideas.
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Dec 29, 2013 22:17
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Big Blood Bovine posted:As far as I've understood, correct me if I'm wrong, one of the biggest problems in Africa is the weak state of government authority or the state in general. I'm not just talking about completely failed states a la Somalia, but weak central auhtorities in general. States have problems collecting taxes, allow half-independent militias to form and have extremely regionalist politicians who care mostly about their own province. Because of this people don't identify as much with their country, but with their nationality and religion. I was doing some research into african development recently and there's actually a lot of information on this subject available. One of the studies I read found a correlation between pre-colonial states and modern economic development, with the implication that areas with a long history of strong centralized authority tend to have faster economic growth today than areas without a history of state power. One theory the authors advanced to explain this result was that in areas where local leaders were unaccountable to higher authority, they were free to embezzle wealth as they saw fit. In areas with centralized political traditions, the local authority's priorities change. With centralized administration local leaders want to climb the bureaucratic state ladder, and to do that they need a base of support, support which has to be bought. The results of the survey suggested that older traditions of such career tracks improved development even today in places like Uganda, which experienced a really destructive decentralized period during and in the immediate aftermath of Idi Amin's rule, the tradition is surprisingly durable. In places like Somalia, and many other places in Africa I think, the state has to compete with other traditional centers of power, which can undermine the institutions we in the west normally consider preeminent. The paper [i]The Logic of Clan Politics/i] by Kathleen Collins provides a number of mechanisms through which Clans can weaken the state. In the 1990s the collapse of the Soviet Union created a many new states in Central Asia, each starting on a radically different development trajectory. These trajectories were chosen sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by the whim of post-Soviet leadership, and sometimes even with the intent of fostering liberal-democracy. However in spite of the different trajectories, each new government gradually became more and more like its neighbors. Collins postulates that this convergence is due to a reversion to "clan politics," that is the politics of these new states were dictated by the clan structures of central asian culture. Prior to independence the Soviet government had attempted to eliminate Clan structures as pre-modern relics. However social institutions are durable, and can persist in the mind even without concrete authority. In the right circumstances, especially when the state is weakened by unrelated issues like economic crises or civil wars, clans can begin undermining state power. Collins outlines three ways in which this happens, kin-based patronage, asset stripping, and "crowding-out" formal institutions. These mechanisms are closely interrelated. Politicians, either democratic or not, can turn to clan networks to mobilize political support, which "crowds-out" western political parties. These politicians are then put under enormous pressure to provide patronage to their kin, in competition with other clans. If economic conditions turn sour, the same pressure to provide patronage still exists, which causes politicians and bureaucrats reliant on kin support to begin stripping government assets to maintain that patronage. Asset stripping further weakens state institutions, which cause people to rely on more and more traditional institutions, like tribal moots instead of poorly funded civil courts with six month backlogs, further undermining state authority. Institutional development seems to play a big role in modern development, although it is obviously a complicated issue and hard to measure empirically. I haven't done enough research to say anything concrete about an example as specific as Somalia, and at least in Somaliland (uh... or maybe Puntland? can't remember) the clan system seems to have produced a pretty good government, better at least than many governments that have actually have international recognition. Relatively peaceful and stable, at least.
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Dec 31, 2013 08:38
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It's been a rather hectic couple of days. With an outburst of violence in the DRC co-ordinated by a Katangan televangelist, an exiled Rwandan spy boss Talks have started between the two sides in South Sudan after Museveni threatened to Here's the most recent map from UNOCHA showing Internally Displaced persons in South Sudan:  From here But enough of this doom and gloom! Happy new year everybody!  A new year brings a new round of elections and the big one this year is South Africa's general election due to kick off in April. With Zuma's popularity plunging following allegations of mis-using public funds, the second largest party (the Democratic Alliance) are gearing up for a campaign run on an anti-corruption ticket. The Congress of the People (the third largest party) have formed a coalition with a host of other minor parties hoping to take a bite out of the ANC's majority. The biggest problem the ANC has to deal with though is a major revolt from South Africa's largest union NUMSA (National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa) who have defied both COSATU (their federation) and the South African Communist Party by withdrawing their support for the ANC and calling for Zuma's resignation. This is a major blow against the tripartite alliance that the ANC have relied on for years, it's even more humiliating for Zuma as the unions played an essential role in securing his leadership of the ANC. With the emergence of the Trotskyist Workers and Socialist Party and Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters the ANC will be squeezed on the left (this is the first election since Marikana after all). The ANC isn't going to be wiped out but we may finally see it's majority dip to 60% (or lower!). This is actually a bigger deal than it sounds. There are also the Malawian elections looming on the horizon. These are also set to be rather dramatic following the increasingly surreal Cashgate scandal that has lead to donors cutting off aid, Joyce Banda sacking her entire cabinet and prisoners starving to death as the government struggled to release adequate funds for the prison service. Whether or not any of this will actually play out in the polls is another question but the IMF is deeply involved with Malawi and the non-stop scandal wave is definitely embarrassing some "development" gurus. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 01:29
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What's the situation like in, er, regular Sudan these days anyway?
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Jan 3, 2014 01:53
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Squalid posted:I was doing some research into african development recently and there's actually a lot of information on this subject available. One of the studies I read found a correlation between pre-colonial states and modern economic development, with the implication that areas with a long history of strong centralized authority tend to have faster economic growth today than areas without a history of state power. Doesn't this hold as a crude but somewhat general pattern. History of centralized, organized government correlates with modern success? Certainly it's true for Europe and its descendants (notable U.S., Australia etc) but also, for example, Japan which was well behind Europe but had a somewhat similar centuries old history of government rapidly caught up once it adopted modern technology in the late 1800's/early 1900's to become the second largest economy in the world. It seems to me that people shy away from this type of deterministic view (for some good reasons), but it's well recognized in European history that development states as we know them took centuries or more. It's a large and not necessarily natural leap for people to recognize themselves as individuals of a state with a far off capital. For various reasons other areas didn't follow this trajectory but have, in recent times, had state borders arbitrarily drawn and state government basically dropped on top of them.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:20
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Install Windows posted:What's the situation like in, er, regular Sudan these days anyway? Not great. I think it's only a matter of time until Sudan explodes violently, al-Bashir's days are numbered and he doesn't look like he's going to step aside willing. There was a wave of protests in late September about fuel and bread prices that the government brutally suppressed, I've seen death toll estimates between 100-200. al-Bashir's own party, the NCP, actually criticized the clampdown and the military also made some grumbling noises about the violence. His reaction was to sack a chunk of his cabinet and replace them with loyalists who would tow the line but there is a definite rift developing and al-Bashir is becoming increasingly isolated domestically. He's tried to build more ties with Islamists locally and internationally to shore up his power but there is a serious power-play developing between al-Bashir's faction (led by al-Bashir and Bakri Hassan Saleh) and Nafie Ali Nafie, the former head of Sudan's intelligence service and military strongman who was pushed out in the cabinet reshuffle. A coup may be on the cards rather than a popular uprising but something is going to give soon. The Sudanese economy is also in a tailspin, losing all of the oil wealth in South Sudan has not done them any favors and the host of international sanctions aren't helping them either. They are struggling to meet the basic needs of their citizens and prices are spiraling out of control. Sudan are also bogged down fighting rebellions in South Kordofan and Blue Nile which are also sucking up a fair amount of cash. Economically they are hosed pure and simple.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:21
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Slaan posted:If you want to learn more about monetary culture in West Africa, there is a really good book called African Friends and Money Matters by David Maranz which goes in-depth into the differences between American/European financial culture and African financial culture. Its a bit old though. I realize I have a heavy American bias, but wow, that does a good job of making African personal finance sound absolutely awful, and I thought America was bad. Goons who have lived in Africa, is this accurate?
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Jan 3, 2014 03:42
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The book makes things sound a lot worse than they actually are, because he is trying to make points with his hyberbolic stories; but yes, in day to day life I do see this happen a lot. For instance, a man died in my village a few weeks ago and the family put on a party/wake for the entire quarter I was in. People would just drop by, drink some alcohol and eat the food. They ran an electrical generator all day (in case power went out), rented giant speakers, etc. They basically blew all of their spending money on this even though one of their sons just got a license to be a hairdresser. He needed the capital to open his shop and begin making money. It really is true, at least here, that people value social ties/capital far more than financial capital, and so expect the local rich people to pay for things to increase their local social standing.
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Jan 3, 2014 10:38
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Pretty interesting video following a traffic cop in Mogadishu around for a day. He talks a bit about his thoughts on the security situation in Somalia, and his hope for the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sopa8GIZpEU
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Jan 5, 2014 12:10
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Haven't posted in this thread in a bit, lots of stuff happening recently. South Sudan The peace negotiations continue to drag on, a major bottleneck has been the release of the opposition politicians arrested over the alleged coup against Kiir. The government has refused to release them to participate in the negotations and instead offered to relocate the talks to Juba so they could talk part, unsurprisingly the rebels did were not keen to move the talks to the government controlled capital. An Ethiopian radio station has reported today that a ceasefire has now been agreed but I haven't seen it confirmed yet - The government has already made it clear that even if a ceasefire is signed they will most likely continue military operations against rebels: Reuters posted:"(Machar) is not in control of these people. So even if a peace agreement is signed, or cessation of hostilities, these people who are not under the control of Machar will continue creating insecurity for the people and government," he said. Since the peace talks started the government has retaken Bentiu and today announced they had driven the last of the rebels out of Bor. After a series of leaks from the Ugandan army Museveni finally admitted publicly that Uganda is fighting alongside the government to crush the rebellion (especially in Bor), providing aerial support as well as actual boots on the ground (and some reports have indicated armoured units as well). Pretty much everyone had figured this out already but it will be interesting to see if Museveni will be reprimanded by any international powers for this, the US is beginning to lose it's patience and is making some vague threats about sanctions against individuals in South Sudan. CAR Crisis Word is that France has finally convinced the EU to send a joint mission to CAR (similar to Operation Artemis), an announcement is expected on Monday. The UK, Germany and Italy have all ruled themselves out from participating but Belgium, France and Estonia seem to be on board (with Sweden and Poland on the fence). This is coming hot on the heels of a report from a UN monitoring group that concluded that France's focus on the disarmament of ex-Seleka groups only is partially responsible for some of the violence (as it allowed for violent reprisals from anti-Balaka militias). The report also worryingly backed up the reports that Chadian forces in the country colluded with the ex-Seleka groups in carrying out attacks on Christian civilians, there has been a major push to demobilize the Chadian units and replace them with other forces as soon as possible in recent weeks. Djotodia, the interim president propelled into power by the Seleka, resigned last week after coming under pressure from regional powers (Chad) to step down to try to halt the conflict. This hasn't really done much to be honest, a care-taker president has been appointed and new leader is due to be elected on Monday. DRC Something is loving going on in the Congo. After the bizarre coup attempt on the 30th December, Lubumbashi in Katanga has been on security lock-down with sporadic outbreaks of violence being reported between FARDC and Kata Katanga (a local self-defense group/secessionist movement). The recent Group of Experts report on the DRC (leaked to African Arguments here) concluded that Kata Katanga are closely connected to General John Numbi. General Numbi is a very influential figure who was forced to step aside as head of the National police following his implication in the murder of a human rights activist and many are interpreting recent events as a power-play within the upper echelons of the Congolese government. No one is really buying the government's line on this. On top of all of this shadowy poo poo Col. Mamadou Ndala, the commander of the succesfull joint FARDC/MONUSCO operation against M23 last year, was killed in a Bazooka attack in North Kivu. Mamadou was immensely popular in Goma and with Western groups, he was seen as a disciplined soldier and diplomatic figure who might have been able to stamp out the rampant corruption/collusion in the army and help stabilize the region. Here's a report written after his death: quote:He walked into battle seemingly without fear. As shells whistled overhead last July, Colonel Mamadou Ndala, towering above the men he commanded, stood tall, constantly switching between the mobile phone in one hand and the walkie-talkie in the other, and marched through the rugged, volcanic rock issuing orders to advance. He wasn’t armed, but trusted his men around him completely. Walking back from the front, three tanks were lined along the road. He shouted orders into his radio, and they sent shells towards his enemy’s hilltops. It was initially reported that he was killed in an ambush by the ADF, a Ugandan Islamist group active in the East that the FARDC had begun operations against. This was thrown out of the window though after the arrest of several FARDC soldiers in relation to the killing. It now looks like Mamadou was assassinated by a faction within the army loyal to the Republican Guard, Kabila's own elite military unit. There is definitely something going on in the DRC. Finally Uganda... Some good news! Museveni refused to sign the anti-homosexuality bill into law! Finally, a victory for LGBT rights in Africa! Well, no. In true Museveni style he justified his decision with a rambling 8-page letter that is just plain vile. You can read a scanned copy here. It is disgusting but it does give an insight into the conservative African attitude to LGBT rights, I have picked out some choice pearls of wisdom: quote:The question at the core of the debate of the homosexuals is "What do we do with an abnromal person? Do we kill him/her? Do we imprison him/her? Or do we contain him/her?" I need a stiff drink after typing that out kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 19:27
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It looks like the South Sudanese government is just going to press for all-out victory instead of negotiating at this point. They've taken back most of the major towns in the country. The rebels are going to have to go for guerilla warfare out in the bush. Also, Kiir is pissed at the UN and African nations are a bit miffed that Uganda decided to insert troops into South Sudan in support of the government. http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-south-sudan-united-nations-20140122,0,6202955.story#axzz2rAr9C9Jm
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Jan 23, 2014 00:50
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Seeing as this is the only non South Africa thread here and Nigeria doesn't fit in the Middle East thread... http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27283383 quote:Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has threatened to "sell" the hundreds of schoolgirls it abducted three weeks ago. Nckdictator fucked around with this message at 16:42 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 16:40
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Looks like another event where the thread's title is all-too-true. The mass kidnapping is resonating with a lot of people I know, but there's also a sense of resigned helplessness. More than likely these girls will never be rescued - some are probably already dead, and a group that large is bound to have been split up all over the place by now so that even if a rescue gets attempted they'll never find them all. There's a horrible feeling when you hear about medieval-level barbarity and know there's nothing you or anyone else can or will do about it. It's something that makes you wonder what the hell you're doing with your life when this sort of thing is going on.
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May 6, 2014 03:18
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Nigeria sounds like the worst goddamned place on Earth.
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May 6, 2014 03:27
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Dolash posted:Looks like another event where the thread's title is all-too-true. The mass kidnapping is resonating with a lot of people I know, but there's also a sense of resigned helplessness. More than likely these girls will never be rescued - some are probably already dead, and a group that large is bound to have been split up all over the place by now so that even if a rescue gets attempted they'll never find them all. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/30/boko-haram-girls.html http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-nigeria-boko-haram-girls-20140505,0,1087730.story Probably the best sources I admit, but last I read according to the abductors two are already dead from snake bites and 20 are ill. Also according to this/the principal of the school 50 of them are believed to have escaped, which I guess is hard to not see as a good thing.
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May 6, 2014 03:32
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Meanhile Goodluck Johnathan's wife is talking poo poo about the protesting mothers, because of course this is all just a hoax to discredit her husband.
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May 6, 2014 03:37
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Volkerball posted:Pretty interesting video following a traffic cop in Mogadishu around for a day. He talks a bit about his thoughts on the security situation in Somalia, and his hope for the future. This is awesome. I see there's a whole series of those on their channel, I'm definitely going to check it out.
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May 6, 2014 03:49
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SedanChair posted:Meanhile Goodluck Johnathan's wife is talking poo poo about the protesting mothers, because of course this is all just a hoax to discredit her husband. Oh it's a good deal worse than that: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27283278
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May 6, 2014 06:35
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agarjogger posted:Nigeria sounds like the worst goddamned place on Earth. Its pretty horrible, yeah. Nigeria has the same problems as most of West Africa; namely, Christian v Muslim (South v North, really) division, poverty, access to weapons, etc. Its just a lot worse there because its population is much greater, thus more extremists, there is much more money thanks to petroleum (and its more easily laundered money!) and a political system which has become far more corrupt than most others in the region. The insurgency is also in a 'sweet spot' of size, as well, where its big enough to make headlines but small enough that they aren't trying to actually take over the country/force international intervention (such as Mali, or Cote D'Ivoire). The porous borders around Nigeria are also a major problem. Child trafficking for slave/domestic labor is rampant between the nations, its easy for bandits and smugglers to do business and the governments don't have enough money to patrol the long frontiers. Its basically just a worst-case scenario of resources, geography, socioeconomic divides and terrible institutions mashed into one giant clusterfuck.
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May 6, 2014 09:29
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27289128quote:Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau sent a video - obtained by the AFP news agency - in which he said for the first time that his group had taken the girls. Wow, what a piece of poo poo.
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May 6, 2014 11:08
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DarkCrawler posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27289128 Yeah, not to be a dick about it but I am kinda mad that Tal Fortgang is getting top views on BBC and not this article. This, and worse, happens daily in our globe but it feels like it barely gets reported on if at all. This is seriously just evil.
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May 6, 2014 19:46
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Armani posted:Yeah, not to be a dick about it but I am kinda mad that Tal Fortgang is getting top views on BBC and not this article. This, and worse, happens daily in our globe but it feels like it barely gets reported on if at all. Because the UK is sinking into white-fascism, and UKIP stands to win it big.
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May 7, 2014 00:16
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The United States is getting involved. I have a bad feeling about this. Not with the US getting involved, but with the Nigerian military being overzealous. I'm thinking a battle breaks out during a raid with a lot of deaths occurring, including the missing girls.
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May 7, 2014 00:47
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Bro Dad posted:Oh it's a good deal worse than that: quote:A woman leading protests over the abduction of more than 200 girls in Nigeria has been detained on the orders of the president's wife, activists say. DarkCrawler posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27289128 Oh my god. I cant even imagine how I would react if my leaders responded to ever so purely evil an act by showing such disdain and contempt for any victims and their families 
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May 7, 2014 08:07
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DarkCrawler posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27289128 edit: Ah, the first link there actually has the video. Yeah, that guy is a piece of work.
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May 7, 2014 10:41
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Another factor with the HIV-mess is that educators hired for those HIV-prevention/eduction campaigns run by various humanitarian organizations are the sheer number of languages spoken in these regions. As far as I'm aware, for the longest time, these educators were using whatever colonial European language the country in question was officially using, but it is in fact rather difficult to be compelling and convincing about HIV-background information and prevention when your target audience only shares a language with you that is perhaps at best tertiary in their life. It's like trying to explain how a computer works to someone whose primary language is ancient Greek. The concepts just aren't part of the cultural, uh...world-knowledge for too many people yet. Basic tenets of expert -> layman communication skills have long not been applied. Only more recently have educators become available with a very good understanding of the subject matter AND a good grasp of a local language to form ideal conditions for successful knowledge transfer. But again, with the vast multitude of languages in Africa, it's not trivial to achieve these successes on a large scale. I mean, just talking people's ears off about viruses and other high concept biology poo poo in French or something is just a didactic catastrophe - it's not going to be compelling or easily remembered even if it's entirely correct. But crucially, if you CAN achieve proper knowledge transfer through good teaching methods, HIV-prevention knowledge is MUCH more likely to be shared in the communities of whatever people showed up to listen to your seminar or whatever, if only just because suddenly people are actually equipped to share knowledge they picked up instead of having barely understood it. As a translator/linguist, I could walk into a high level physics class and afterwards probably share poo poo-all of what was taught if someone prompted me because I'm missing so much of the groundwork. Same concept here. I'm sorry if some of this stuff is not quite correct, and what I wrote mostly applies to more rural groups, or those of lower social standings. I've been going off memory from Drescher, Martina (2010): "Contextualizing Local Knowledge: Reformulations in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Burkina Faso", in: Higgins, Christina /Norton, Bonny (Hg.): Language and HIV/AIDS. Bristol et al, 197-213. Edit: There was another work cited here but it was me misremembering its content. Sorry if this isn't really political, I just thought it was interesting as an example how the alternative to a Euro-language infodumps are both very important yet also difficult to achieve. Although it's been a little while since I did any reading on the topic. Psykmoe fucked around with this message at 15:04 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 15:01
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Jubs posted:The United States is getting involved. Unfortunately, this wouldn't surprise me. Since the the Nigerian government declared a state of emergency in the North Eastern provinces last year the actions of the Nigerian army have been horrific, the tight control over the media has meant that we often don't hear about attacks until days after they have occurred and accusations of the military summarily executing detainees have begun to surface. Amnesty International have claimed that the Army summarily executed over 600 escaped detainees in one day after Boko Haram carried out a raid on the Giwa barracks. Foreign observers may force the Nigerian army to reign in their operations but the porous nature of the Northern border may make any Nigerian-only rescue operation futile, there are already concrete reports that Boko Haram have started operating and recruiting in northern Cameroon. Think Africa Press has a good piece about the changing nature of Boko Haram. It looks that military rule may be transforming the organization in some very worrying ways; Since the start of the year they have been primarily targeting civilians in remote rural communities and have begun to resemble a border-hopping cult much like the LRA in Central Africa. EDIT; There's also an interesting two part piece at African Defence Review looking into Boko Haram's current military capability that is well worth a read. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 16:36 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 15:08
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Psykmoe posted:I mean, just talking people's ears off about viruses and other high concept biology poo poo in French or something is just a didactic catastrophe - it's not going to be compelling or easily remembered even if it's entirely correct. But crucially, if you CAN achieve proper knowledge transfer through good teaching methods, HIV-prevention knowledge is MUCH more likely to be shared in the communities of whatever people showed up to listen to your seminar or whatever, if only just because suddenly people are actually equipped to share knowledge they picked up instead of having barely understood it. Yeah, me and my NGO do nutrition and HIV trainings here in Benin, and this is very important. The schools really only teach the basics of disease and nutrition after ~10th grade equivalents. And, as you can imagine, almost nobody makes it that far. Primary schools are free for everyone, but the children may need to walk an hour each way, or the children are needed to work in the fields, etc. So drop outs are common. Thus, when we work in a rural village, we have to take things down to the most basic level and use local translators to explain things; generally the translators are college educated and actually grasp the information, but not always. So for malaria trainings, for example, we have to say that mosquitoes 'curse your blood with bad magic' to local folk because they don't understand how diseases work. At most, they will know "microbes" are bad, but nothing more; not what they do, where you get them, how to defend against them. Just the word with a negative connotation. Even people who speak European languages and enter the equivalent of high school don't really understand the basics because the schools are just that bad. My neighbor, an 11th grade student at the top of his class, asks me 'which has more vitamins and energy' all the time. There is no distinction made between proteins, various micro-nutrients, carbs v fats, etc. So we have to teach about eating a large variety of foods, and giving children extra meats, beans and cheeses for healthy growth. Its a really important facet of teaching to people in Africa, which is often ignored by us Westerners. We take having a good education for granted; even the worst schools in the US outperform the best schools in Africa (save, obviously, the private schools attended by ministers kids, diplomat's kids, etc).
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May 7, 2014 16:42
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As a quick aside, Dan Murphy wrote an interesting piece on the etymology of 'Boko Haram', and how its meaning is a bit more complicated than 'Western Education is Forbidden'. Given how common this translation is - I've seen it referenced in every piece about the group - I think it's worth noting. Also, in response to Chinese development / soft power projects in Africa, wanted to share this map. Not a bad overview.  Source: Yes, it's from Zero Hedge, but still a solid graphic.
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May 7, 2014 19:50
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trash squad posted:As a quick aside, Dan Murphy wrote an interesting piece on the etymology of 'Boko Haram', and how its meaning is a bit more complicated than 'Western Education is Forbidden'.
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May 7, 2014 22:04
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I can't see a Nigerian army led rescue attempt that doesn't result in a massive bloodbath with most of the hostages dying. Honestly, I know negotiating with terrorists is a frowned upon, but if the kidnapped girls are coming back alive it's more likely to happen due to a payoff.
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May 7, 2014 23:58
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In practice that's exactly what it means, even if it isn't a literal translation. I do not care that the word Boko means "inauthentic" or "fraudulent" if their views and actions are derived from the idea that western education is Haraam and their founding history consists of rich people forbidding their children from reading any book other than The Authentic, 100% Boko-Free Koran™.
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May 8, 2014 00:14
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New Division posted:I can't see a Nigerian army led rescue attempt that doesn't result in a massive bloodbath with most of the hostages dying. That's what I was thinking. It almost sounds like "we will sell them" was a really weird and perverse way of demanding a ransom. The Nigerian government could technically "buy" them.
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May 8, 2014 00:25
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OwlBot 2000 posted:In practice that's exactly what it means, even if it isn't a literal translation. I do not care that the word Boko means "inauthentic" or "fraudulent" if their views and actions are derived from the idea that western education is Haraam and their founding history consists of rich people forbidding their children from reading any book other than The Authentic, 100% Boko-Free Koran™. not correcting anyone, just an interesting history of the term. otherwise, BH executed a fairly well-coordinated attack on a Northern village recently used as a base of operations for the Nigerian army, around 300 civilians killed. on an unrelated note, does anyone have experience in Guinea-Bissau? last i heard it was basically a narco-state, being used as a trans-shipment point for drugs headed to Europe. lots of high level corruption, no money for state services.
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May 8, 2014 14:30
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Can't the US help with drones tracking down those girls? If theres one thing these Drone Operators are good at its finding a Muslim wedding.
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May 8, 2014 20:32
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Teron D Amun posted:Can't the US help with drones tracking down those girls? If theres one thing these Drone Operators are good at its finding a Muslim wedding. It might help some, but if they've split up into groups it's going to be a difficult task tracking everyone down in the Nigerian back country. Even if you locate them, you're still relying on the Nigerian military to pull off the actual rescue, and like I said, that would probably end in a huge Beslan-style bloodbath. If the girls are coming back alive, it'll probably be through ransom or a prisoner exchange, not a dramatic rescue.\ edit: There was a hostage situation last year in Nigeria involving British special forces got involved that ended badly. I dunno if anyone remembers, but the story is here. There was also a French operation in Somalia that ended with a dead hostage, and the US has had its share of hostage rescue fiascos. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/world/africa/britain-italy-in-spat-over-failed-rescue-try-in-nigeria.html?_r=0 Hostage rescue attempts are really, really hard y'all. New Division fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 20:56
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