Back Again!

Side Note: Apologies for the month-long haitus! An unfortunate laptop disaster and the end of term led me to temporarily abandon my post(s). The continent never sleeps, so don't worry--posts are coming at you again. Starting with a very interesting post by my astute Tunisian student Yassine, see below. :)

Guest Post: Topless Photos in Tunisia

Guest Post: Yassine from Tunisia

Tunisian FEMEN Activist Posts Topless Photos, Causes Huge Controversy

Amina Tyler, member of radical feminist organization FEMEN, posted two topless photos of herself on FEMEN Tunisia's Facebook page in mid-March. The nineteen-year old had written "Fuck your morals" under her chest in the first picture, and "My body belongs to me, and does not represent anyone's honor" in the second picture.

The bold move by the young activist sparked much controversy, with the country's conservatives responding most vehemently to what they viewed as an act of debauchery and whoredom. FEMEN Tunisia's Facebook page was hacked by Islamist hackers who replaced the pictures with quranic verses and threats to Amina.

Adel Almi, an influential Islamist preacher, has called for Amina to be lashed 80 to a 100 times, and suggested stoning her to death.

Having received threats to her life, there was much concern about the safety of Amina. Many rumors about what had happened to her circulated in the weeks following the posting of the picture. Some claimed she was abducted, while others said that her parents had her admitted to a mental institution. However, latest reports from Le Monde confirm that Amina is safe, according to her lawyer.

Tunisia is considered to be one of the most liberal Arab countries, with women's rights and equality legally institutionalized. However, the 'religious reawakening' within Tunisian society and the rise of the ruling Islamist party Ennahdha has caused much concern about women's rights and position in society. Under the Tunisian penal code, Tyler can be sentenced to up to six months in prison for distributing her topless photo if someone files a complaint.

FEMEN, a feminist activist group famous for its topless protests, was founded in Ukraine but has increasingly expanded its actions internationally. They operate mostly in Europe.

Random Yassine thoughts: I can't quite make up my mind on this issue. On the one hand, I find Amina's act admirable in its brave, resistant and freedom-loving nature. On the other, I also see it as an unnecessary provocation which will give Islamists, conservatives and hardliners an excuse to further condemn women and retrograde their already-diminishing stature in society. There are definitely better strategies to bring the issue of women's rights to the fore of public debate during this crucial transitional period. However, I concede that radical action is sometimes the best way to impart change (Mohammed Bouazizi's immolation springs to mind), especially with the worrying string of highly publicized pedophiliac rapes that has occurred during the past few days, including one in my hometown Boumhel.

Guest Post: Ghana Elections Contested

Guest Post: NPP Petitions Supreme Court
Guest Poster: Julia from Ghana

The Supreme Court will on Thursday, March 14, 2013 hear a petition challenging the legitimacy of President John Mahama.

John Mahama, President of Ghana and flag bearer of the NDC

The Petitioners

The petitioners, Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr Mahamadu Bawumia and the Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey filed the petition at the highest court of the land praying it to annul votes cast in 11,916 polling stations due to what they termed "gross and widespread irregularities."

They had, in a December 28, 2012 petition, called for the annulment of votes cast in 4,709 polling stations but amended their petition on February 9, 2013 after the court had granted them permission to do so, citing 11,916 polling stations as the total number of polling stations where alleged irregularities were recorded.

The three had initially called for the cancellation of 1,342,845 valid votes cast during the election at 4,709 polling stations due to the alleged irregularities were recorded during the elections. But they are now urging the Supreme Court to pronounce additional 3,327,659 valid votes cast as invalid.

The Supreme Court on February 7, 2013 granted the petitioners their request of amendment, and accordingly allowed it.

December 2012 Campaign Poster of Opposition Leader, Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Akuffo-Addo.

The Respondents

President Mahama, who is the first respondent, the Electoral Commission (EC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the second and third respondents respectively, have filed their responses.

They have all refuted the petitioners' allegations on the grounds that President Mahama won the elections legitimately in the full glare of the media, local and international election observers.

The NDC applied to join the petition on December 31, 2012 and was duly granted permission by a 6- 3 majority decision of the Supreme Court on January 22, 2013.

Random Julia Thoughts:

Ghana is the beacon of democracy of the African continent. This is one of the reasons why President Obama chose to visit Ghana for his first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa. 

However, the recent election unrest has led me to believe that, perhaps, my country is not the mature democracy I thought it was. I live in Kwashieman, an NPP stronghold in Accra. In the days following the December, 2012 elections, my neighborhood was under a 24 hour police patrol because of NPP protests that had turned violent. These NPP protesters were wreaking havoc in other suburbs as well, some even attacking journalists, causing a news blackout before the official results were released. Yes, this happened in Ghana, ranked number one in press freedom in Africa!

I understand that the NPP have a constitutional right to appeal the election results if they believe they were unfair, however international observers concluded that the elections were indeed free and fair. In fact, international observers produced results declaring that President Mahama had won by an even greater margin than the results the Electoral Commission announced. Given the instability following the elections, I find the propaganda of the NPP unacceptable and blatantly selfish; imagine, the NPP called on its supporters to begin partying before the EC announced the official election results because they would accept nothing but victory! Clearly, they are not mature enough to govern a democracy any time soon.

NDC won, NDC should rule!

Kenyan Elections!

Yesterday were the long-awaited Kenyan Elections! Hip hip! Hooray!

Hip hip!

Hooray!

Unlike the 2007-8 Kenyan elections, where hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were displaced and up to a thousand killed, these elections are (crossyourfingers) looking a lot better. About 15 have been killed, but it does not (yet at least) look like the kind of mass panic of five years ago.

Mad props to the brainchild of my former student, the I Am Kenyan project

My biggest concern, however, is that the root cause of the election violence, ethnicity, is still very much present. My Kenyan students have expressed a lot of concern that their parents vote solely based on tribal loyalties. And I will allow a Kenyan student of mine to discuss that in more detail later, so for now, let's just talk about the fun stuff: the winner!

It seems that the likely winner (60% votes still pending, this is NOT like CNN the night of the elections like in the US) will be... Uhuru Kenyatta!

Sound familiar?

Well, if you've studied or ever been to Kenya, you might recognize that name, Kenyatta...

like Jomo Kenyatta International Airport!

Jomo Kenyatta Airport

or, most famously, the father of independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta himself.

Jomo Kenyatta

And yep, as you might have guessed, Uhuru is his son.

Sound like the Kennedy's or the Bush's?

Perhaps. But more concerning is that Uhuru Kenyatta (whose name means fittingly "Freedom") was accused by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Oops.

And while many people want to accuse the BUSH Administration of such crimes (start with the website http://www.bushtothehague.org/ for more info), ICC accusations are no joke.

And the winner of this election is looking like the man himself, Uhuru Kenyatta.

Uhuru Kenyatta

Good luck, Kenya.

SA Hero Shoots GF Dead

All the talk these days here in South Africa surrounds the recent fallen hero, Oscar Pistorius. For those of you who didn't watch the African version of DSTV during the London Olympics, Pistorius is supremely famous for being a double-amputee who excelled not only in the Paralympics, but also was the first double amputee to compete in the actual Olympics in London 2012.

Oscar Pistorius on the starting block

The tragedy?

Oscar Pistorius, winner of races and uniter of races (hah, get the pun?) here in SA, shot his girlfriend dead early in the morning of February 14th. Talk about a bad Valentine's day. :(

Pistorius and his girlfriend

The first rumor about the cause of the shooting was that he had thought his girlfriend was an intruder. This came about in part because of a tweet he posted last November:

He has been interviewed in the past stating that he also kept a "machine gun by the window." Perhaps overly paranoid, but keep in mind many South Africans are paranoid here. Crime is pretty crazy and especially white South Africans are infamous for their barbed-wire fences, security guards, barred-windows, and twelve-foot high walls around every house. The Silver Woods Country Estate, where Pistorius lived in Pretoria, is actually known for being one of the safest of the ubiquitous compounds where South Africans tend to live. That said, in 2004, a Springbok rugby player shot his 19-year-old daughter dead in the middle of the night because he thought she was a car thief stealing his car. So Pistorius is not alone in screwing up like this, not even for a famous guy.

All of that said, it has started to come out that she was sitting on the sink, locked in the bathroom in her nightgown, when he shot her. Doesn't sound much like an accident to me, nor the press. His girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, was a model and law graduate, and he shot her four times with a 9mm through the bathroom door.

Pistorius appeared in court and cried, so he obviously seems to regret having done this. Rumors now swirl around, saying that he has always had anger problems (supposedly shot a gun into the floor of a nearby restaurant a couple of months ago), that his previous ex-girlfriends were not treated well, that it might have been "'roid rage," and who knows what else.

Random Kate Thoughts: Everyone here is really sad. They are sad for Steenkamp's death, but much more so for their fallen hero, Pistorius. He united people with his gold medals, and now everyone feels betrayed by his actions. And while thousands of women in South Africa experience violence at the hands of their partners every year, this week, all eyes are on this story. What might be the value of a poster child, so to speak? The story of Anene Booysen, a girl in another part of South Africa, who was sadistically raped and murdered, seems to have galvinized the country into action against sexual violence. What about domestic violence? Might this do the same? Or is it just going to be another celebrity gone wrong?

For the final bit of irony in this whole saga, here is the ad that Nike was going to run in the near future, featuring Pistorius himself.

Needless to say, it has been pulled.

Guest Post: Tunisian Opposition Leader Assassinated

Guest Post: Yassine from Tunisia

Last Wednesday morning, Tunisia woke up to the tragic and shocking assassination of Chokri Belaid, a leading opposition figure and secretary general of the left-leaning Democratic Patriots party. Chokri Belaid was shot outside his home in an upscale Tunis neighborhood as he was getting into his car. According to eyewitness accounts, later confirmed by the Minister of Interior, Belaid was gunned down by two unidentified men who shot him four times at his neck and head. This political assassination, which crowns escalating waves of political violence in the past months, is the first of its kind since the fulfillment of the 14^th of January 2011 Revolution, which signaled the birth of the Arab Spring.

Ironically, Mr. Belaid has warned countless times of the dangers of mounting political violence, and has urged a national dialogue to address this issue. On the night before his murder, Belaid stated at a Tunisian T.V. station that “the government’s laxity in face of the political violence the country has been witnessing and the non-condemnation of the perpetrators of such violence, whom all Tunisians know, is an effective green light for political assassinations.”

Chokri Belaid

A lawyer and human rights activist, Chokri Belaid has a long history of activism. He was one of Tunisia's most prominent secular political figures opposed to Islamist parties and an outspoken critic of the government. He is widely considered to be one of the top three leftist thinkers in Tunisia. The assassination has sparked protests and civil unrest since Wednesday, with police clashing with protesters and firing tear gas in demonstration in several cities around the country. A policeman was killed by a stone to the chest thrown by a protester. Last Friday, thousands of Tunisians attended Belaid’s funeral. There were minor clashes as his coffin was carried through Tunis, but the event was largely peaceful. Sporadic protests and clashes have been reported all around Tunisia, and many workers are observing a general strike. Unions say the Islamist-led government is to blame for the killing, an accusation it vehemently denied.

Belaid's coffin

The government was fast in attempting to contain the situation. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has tried to defuse tensions by announcing that he would form a non-partisan, technocratic government. His governing Ennahda party has rejected this. But Jebali on Friday told reporters he would go ahead with his plan, saying a technocratic government would not require the approval of the constituent assembly.

Random Yassine thoughts: Aside from being a great loss to the Tunisian political scene, Chokri Belaid’s murder establishes a grave precedent in a country where political assassinations have been rare. Even if I’m thousands of miles away from my homeland, I could ostensibly feel a climate of distrust and animosity settling within the society, which is becoming even more polarized. I don’t expect the instability and unrest growing inside the country to fade away anytime soon. Even the ultra-organized and usually consensual ruling party of Ennahda is being destabilized, with most members of the politburo disagreeing with Jebali’s decision to dismantle the Islamist controlled government and install a “technocratic” one instead. Jebali’s move is clever and demonstrates a cautious and non-inflammatory handling of the crisis, although I am very skeptical as to the impartiality of the prospective government. The only way to defuse the situation in my opinion is for the investigation to yield some meaningful outcomes, for that absence will prove very suspicious and would discredit the government’s intentions. One thing is certain, the assassination is clearly politically motivated. Whether it was a lone psychopathic gunman, some occult political or religious organization assassin, or a government orchestrated operation remains a mystery.

Guest Post: Egyptian Jon Stewart in Trouble

Guest Post: Hazem from Egypt

In the wake of the baffling Egyptian revolution of 2011 that, above anything else, engrained conviction in the Egyptian people that their lives were theirs to lead, a very peculiar new media figure appeared--"the Jon Stewart of Egypt." 

While there was nothing new about a media figure who heavily critiqued Egypt's political scene, there was certainly something unique about one who used such brilliant satirical comedy to poke fun at not one faction, but every faction involved in mainstream events and yet at the same time achieved huge widespread popularity. 

Bassem Youssef, originally a surgeon, had always been passionate about comedy. Then he began posting segments of "B+", his self-made show, on Youtube. As fans and views steadily multiplied and his message carried across the internet, he was contracted to present the show on one of the biggest channels on Egyptian air. Aided by even better resources and an entire team dedicated to researching clips and situations about political events, Youssef took his critique yet one step further.

Bassem Youssef

Alas, that has led to now, where Youssef has had an official complaint filed against him by a prominent Islamic lawyer. Given the disastrous constitution that has just been passed, which is extremely vague in many of its chapters and highly biased towards the Islamists and their philosophy, it is unclear what will result from the investigations. While this is certainly not the first time an official compliant has been filed against Youssef, this is perhaps the first time the complainer wielded this much power.

Random Hazem Thoughts: Bassem Youssef is a long overdue and extremely necessary addition to the Egyptian media. I don't just say this because I have tears in my eyes and can barely breathe because of his humor, but because he ventures into the areas of politics that need criticizing. He mentioned in one recent episode that the reason he is so exceptionally critical of the Islamists is because they now control virtually everything, including all branches of government. He openly professed that should the liberals take power, which he seems in favor of, he would not withhold an inch of the intensity he shows now. This is clear from the fact that during the elections, he indeed satirized all candidates with equal time, even the ones he openly favored. Youssef draws attention to the conspicuous holes in both our politics and our media. I find myself interrupting my laughter many times during his shows to seriously think, "No, the president couldn't have said that!" only to realize that he indeed made a completely unprofessional comment that made no sense. The truth is, we don't want Bassem. We need him.