Connecting people and voices for radical change in Africa

Abstract

In this section of the journal, we aim to give readers of the print journal a picture of what has been published on Roape.net over the last few months, and invite you to connect and follow the articles, blogposts, authors and debates online. Details of all the blogposts referred to here are in the reference list at the end. We warmly invite all our readers to sign up to the Roape.net newsletter and WhatsApp service at the top of the home page of the website.

In January of this year, ROAPE’s Graham Harrison (2022) wrote about his new book, Developmentalism. He argues that all development is capitalist development and explains that development is not only risky and likely to fail, but also very unpleasant. Contemporary notions of development see it is as a stable, incremental and positive process, but this is a fantasy in which capitalist development is reimagined as a planned, inclusive and socially just modernisation.

Early in February, Roape.net hosted a debate on radical political economy. This took place between two radical economists working on Africa, Franklin Obeng-Odoom and Morten Jerven. In this discussion, they debate the use of statistics, mainstream economics, power, imperialism, patriarchy and structural inequality (Obeng-Odoom and Jerven 2022). Both think that mainstream economists get much wrong about Africa, but they differ considerably in their diagnosis of the problem and the way forward.

We also published an excellent interview also in February with Joachim Mwami, now a retired professor of sociology at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Mwami began the translation of Marx’s Capital into Kiswahili many years ago, and Loren Balhorn conducts this interview with Mwami on how he experienced the translation process and on the use of Marxism in a neo-colonial context (Mwami and Balhorn 2022).

Later in February, we posted an introduction to a new book on Rosa Luxemburg by Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn (2022) as he writes on the continuing struggle against barbarism in the world. The book Post Rosa: Letters Against Barbarism ‘is a collection of letter-exchanges in conversation with Rosa Luxemburg’ and ‘aims to be a source of inspiration and encouragement to commit our words and lives to the struggle against barbarism and for socialism’ (Joffre-Eichhorn 2022). It adopts an internationalist approach and features global South contributions from Kenya and Vietnam.

One of our regular writers is Ambreena Manji, writing on this occasion about the Tanzanian government’s threatened eviction of more than 80,000 Maasai from the Ngorongoro world heritage site in the country (Manji 2022a). She examines the government’s claim that the Maasai must be cleared from their land in the interests of conservation and ecology wildlife corridors. The blogpost was kindly translated into Swahili by Evarist Chahali; this version was also published on our site, and has been shared across East Africa (Manji 2022b).

In March, we managed to secure an excellent and provocative long-read piece on the crisis of French imperialism, the Sahel and the recent wave of coups. Amy Niang argues that declining Western hegemony in the region goes hand to hand with intensified competition for access and control of Africa’s natural resources. Furthermore, Niang states, the Russian occupation of Ukraine compels us to look at the importance of the country's growing presence in Africa.

At the end of March, we published a detailed look at Burkina Faso’s coup of 24 January by ROAPE’s Bettina Engels (2022a). This followed her visit to the country soon afterwards, and her discussions with members of the country’s trade unions and other local organisations. In her account, she places the recent coup d’état in the wider context of the popular uprisings and military takeovers since the fall of Blaise Compaoré, concluding that ‘one lesson learnt from the popular insurrection of 2014 is that even if a regime is overturned by a broad alliance of social forces, if there is no vision and strategy of what should come next, little of lasting change will take place’. She has since followed this up with a fuller account and context of the recent coup, with her briefing in this issue (Engels 2022b). In this, she raises questions over the prognosis for the ‘transition phase’, what forms of regime change may be seen as legitimate, and on the character of political authority in the country.

The bloody war in the Ukraine raises questions for Africa and the African diaspora. The odious hypocrisy in the treatment of black people trying to flee the country – and seeking asylum across Europe – is one striking element. In the context of the war, Christiane Ndedi Essombe and Benjamin Maiangwa argued in a blogpost in March that the contempt and compulsive need to invalidate, belittle and dehumanise people of African descent remains unchanged in an irredeemably racist Europe (Essombe and Maiangwa 2022).

A real sign that Roape.net is recognised as a forum for activists is that we are asked to post campaign material and reports from socialist groups on the continent. For example, the Manzese Working Women’s Cooperative, or UWAWAMA, which unites women in Tanzania seeking a cooperative alternative to the ‘slavery’ of financial institutions, summed up their demands for working women in a declaration which they asked Roape.net to publish (UWAMAMA and Collord 2022). We were the only site to post the English translation of the declaration and an introduction by Michaela Collord.

Our interview section remains strong, recently featuring a notable interview with Pan-Afrikan activist Esther Stanford-Xosei that was conducted by ROAPE’s Ben Radley. Esther Stanford-Xosei spoke about the struggle for the total liberation and unification of Afrikan people and an indispensable and self-empowering reparatory justice. She argued that reparatory justice and Pan-Afrikan liberation is central to reparations activism in Britain. Interestingly, the interview was enthusiastically read by comrades in Nigeria, many of whom know about the work of Esther. Questions of reparations, long marginal to debates on justice and transformation on the continent (and Caribbean), have become central to political and economic campaigns and movements.

One of the highlights of this quarter has been our ongoing serialisation of ROAPE’s Chinedu Chukwudinma’s (2022) short, excellent biography of Walter Rodney. Since March, we have been serialising his book on Rodney’s life, A rebel's guide to Walter Rodney. The series started in mid March and continues until 13 June, which is the anniversary of Rodney’s murder in 1980. Chukwudinma’s study argues that Rodney was a Marxist of impressive originality: it covers Rodney’s full life – from the first years in Guyana, before he moved to Jamaica to continue his studies, then to London, Jamaica, Tanzania, and back to Guyana in 1974. This year marks the double anniversary of Rodney’s 80th birthday and of 50 years since the publication of his ground-breaking work How Europe underdeveloped Africa (Rodney 1972).

Many changes are taking place on Roape.net, some these already under way. Ben Radley, who joined ROAPE two years ago, has been playing an increasingly central role in our work. He has pioneered two excellent initiatives, including the quarterly newsletter and our WhatsApp service, which provides instant updates on every new post (please sign up for both on our home page!). Ben is joining Roape.net as an editor from June, as is Chinedu Chukwudinma. Chinedu joined ROAPE last year and has also been incredibly active on Roape.net – commissioning pieces, writing for us, and interviewing activists. His biography on Walter Rodney is a major serialisation on the site.

The site will now be run by this small group: each of us will have responsibility for handling and publishing pieces online and working behind the scenes. Developing and working together in a team will ensure that there is deeper coverage of essential developments on the continent from activists and scholars, with updates on campaigns and radical analysis of Africa’s political economy.

About Roape.net

Together with the print journal, Roape.net seeks to develop a critique of the existing balance of class and social forces in African political economy as a vital part of the project of radical political, environmental and economic transformation. ROAPE’s online platform keeps the struggles for racial, gender and economic equality at the centre of our focus. We aim to highlight debate on the agrarian question, rural immiseration and food sovereignty, the shifting dynamics of popular protest, the transformation of imperialism on the continent, and the role of national and international elites. We are not a substitute for African voices, but a platform for them. To find out more and read our latest contributions, go to https://roape.net/. To subscribe to the quarterly newsletter, fill in your details in the blank box next to the red ‘SUBSCRIBE’ prompt at the top of our home page. To subscribe to the ROAPE WhatsApp service, send the message ROAPE to [phone].