africa

Raise those voices high

Submitted by ni-radio on January 9, 2008 - 12:00am.

While countries that proudly claim to be 'democracies' are supposed to bask in the beauty of different voices and ideas, the reality seems quite different. All too often, its small pockets of people pushing limited agendas that get access to reporters, policy makers and politicians. In fact, the only time that the voices of most people are clearly heard by those in power is through the ballot box - and even then in some countries they're robbed of that chance.

Yet when people are given the opportunities to speak out, their stories can be so strong that they can challenge our prejudices and demand that we leave the comfort of our lounge rooms and cars to see the world in a different way. This - the first program for the New Year - is the 50th we've produced. What better way to mark this anniversary than by revisiting some of the real stars of Radio New Internationalist: our guests.

  • From South Africa, as Kameelah Rasheed explains why, for her, wearing the hijab can be so liberating, she shakes up some stereotypes about how it oppresses Muslim women;
  • From Canada, Abdullah Almalki - who was tortured in Syria for 482 days - sets out his Government's complicity in appalling human rights abuses;
  • From Afghanistan, Sohaila talks in detail about her daily life, and how - if the military interventions into her country were ever really about liberating Afghan people - then they have completely failed.
  • From Malawi and Zambia, Walter Otis Tapfumaneyi, from Panos Southern Africa, describes Radio Listening Clubs - a remarkably democratic initiative through which discussions amongst rural Africans are recorded, then played on national radio programs to relevant parliamentarians or policy makers for their response.

Like our guests, the music that weaves its way through today's program comes from a range of different countries and influences - all from the World Music Network's Riverboat Records series.

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Winner of a program

Submitted by ni-radio on January 2, 2008 - 12:00am.

Radio New Internationalist has just won the 2007 Excellence in Spoken Word Programming award from the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. Here’s the program that won it… Taxing Matters.

Africans are poor. Everyone knows that. But they needn’t be. On current estimates, for every dollar of aid that flows into Africa, five dollars of financial assets flow out into private bank accounts in the Rich World. Money that’s never taxed. Africa has the fastest growth of millionaires in the world, but the burden for building much needed infrastructure keeps on getting pushed back to those who can least afford to pay. For African economies – and the many other countries like it in the Poor World that are straining under the burden of debt – tax revenue means self-reliance, economic freedom, and money to improve education and health.

So why are developing countries relying on aid, rather than taxing those who profit most from their countries? In what is emerging as a major social justice issue for this decade, Radio New Internationalist’s Chris Richards is joined by a range of guests who challenge the accountants and politicians of the world to ‘Go figure!’

  • John Christensen – a Director and founder of the international NGO, Tax Justice Network – spent 11 years as the economic adviser to that infamous tax habourer, the island of Jersey. As co-host, he shows us how countries’ coffers are being plundered to leave populations in poverty, and reveals how vibrant – and important – tax issues can be.
  • Investigative journalist and author, Nicholas Shaxson reveals how President Omar Bongo of Gabon maintained a giant offshore slush fund, fed by African oil and hooked up to tax havens.
  • Greg Muttitt from London NGO PLATFORM lifts the lid on how the International Tax and Investment Center – a registered charity – manipulates governments for six of the world’s biggest oil companies.

With money zipping across borders throughout this program, what more appropriate music could we find to bounce its beats off the spoken words than Rumba without borders (Rumba Sin Fronteras) performed by Cuban percussionist Pancho Quinto.

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Down the dictators

Submitted by ni-radio on October 3, 2007 - 12:00am.

Meet Reed Brody. He hunts dictators for a living. Dictators need to be hunted by full-time professionals. For, as Reed explains: 'If you kill one person, you go to jail. If you kill 40 people, they put you in an insane asylum. But if you kill 40,000 people, you get a comfortable exile with a bank account in another country, and that's what we want to change.'

And the good news is that he and his colleagues at Human Rights Watch are well on the way to making that change. They were there in London when the House of Lords decided that General Augusto Pinochet could be arrested and sent to overseas courts that wanted him to be tried for his crimes against the people of Chile. And although Pinochet - now dead - never faced trial, the knock-on effect since the law lords' decision has been significant. The legal systems of Argentina and Uruguay are paving the way for the arrest and trial of former officials during the 1970s dictatorships that brutally governed their countries. Africa, too, is slowly but surely following suit, with a developing front amongst the African Union to prosecute war criminals on their continent.

With the backdrop of testimonies from people in Latin America and Africa who have been victims of state-sponsored violence, Reed takes us on safari to show how some of the world's worst dictators are being tracked down. From diplomatic negotiations across Europe and Africa down into the former offices of Chad's political police, he explains the barriers to prosecution, how they are being pushed through, and what practical benefit this will hold for the people who have been systemically brutalized by their own governments.

To lift your spirits, the invigorating music that threads its way through today's program comes from those sons of son music, the Cuban band Sierra Maestra, from their Soul of a Nation CD.

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Trafficked

Submitted by ni-radio on September 19, 2007 - 4:58pm.

What kind of person wakes up and says: 'Right, I'm going to make some money by selling a person today?' Apparently it's often a parent or trusted friend; someone known to the victim. And it's women as well as men. Today's program seeks out sex traffickers …and what can be done to stop them. Through stories fresh from the streets and brothels of India, Nigeria and Moldova, profiles of both the exploiters and the exploited emerge that are very different from those reported in the Rich World.

* New Internationalist co-editor Vanessa Baird describes how the global sex trafficking industry operates. She climbs through a cruel barrier discouraging prosecutions of sex traffickers - that police intervention often means the deportation of victims - and introduces us to a country successfully taking an opposite approach.   

* Louisa Waugh - author of Selling Olga: stories of human trafficking and resistance - explains why domestic violence, migrant labour and international sex trafficking go hand-in-hand

* Film maker and writer Bishakha Datta introduces us to the sex workers of India, and why abolishing prostitution is unlikely to stop people-trafficking.

ALSO in this program: the third in a series of interviews from a conference in Shanghai held in May this year to examine the increasing influence of China in Africa. Regular Radio New Internationalist contributor, Nicola Bullard asks Walden Bello, the executive director of Focus on the Global South, for an overview.

And because today's theme was a weighty one, the music that's threading its way through the spoken words is full of exuberance and love for life.  The old up-tempo but melodic traditions of marrabenta - the national rhythm of Mozambique - meet the youthful energy of hip-hop in the CD Soul Marrabenta performed by the band Mabulu.

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Darfur Dilemmas

Submitted by Jess Worth on September 16, 2007 - 7:23pm.

When I spent time earlier this year in a desolate refugee camp in Kenya, I was given one clear message by many of the Darfurian refugees I met there: 'Tell the international community to end the bloodshed in Darfur!' Today is the fourth international Day for Darfur. So I felt that the very least I could do was to join a couple of thousand others outside the Sudanese Embassy in London, to march to Downing Street and demand action. Exactly what that action should be, however, proved controversial… Read more »

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Taxing matters

Submitted by ni-radio on August 29, 2007 - 12:00am.

Most Africans are poor. Everyone knows that. But they needn't be. On current estimates, for every dollar of aid that flows into Africa, five dollars of financial assets flow out into private bank accounts in the Rich World. Money that's never taxed. Africa has the fastest growth of millionaires in the world, but the burden for building much needed infrastructure keeps on getting pushed back to those who can least afford to pay. For African economies straining under the burden of debt and the conditions that are placed on it, tax revenue means self-reliance, economic freedom, and money to improve education and health. So why are African countries relying on aid, rather than taxing those who profit most from their countries? In what is emerging as a major social justice issue for this decade, today's guests challenge the accountants and politicians of the world to 'Go figure!'

Darfur – don't turn away

Submitted by ni-radio on August 1, 2007 - 12:07am.

Say ‘Darfur’, and many of us feel we just can’t confront the prolific slaughter and rape that is taking place there, in the African nation of Sudan. Yet those who don’t turn away will see an extreme example of how many of the world’s governments deal with those seeking independence. On the ground, there’s an arrogant government stripping the natural resources from the area without giving the region and its people opportunities to develop. Internationally there are the diplomatic deals that indirectly prop up the violence and a continuing cycle of United Nations impotence. Together with New Internationalist co-editor Jess Worth – who’s just finished editing a magazine about Darfur – today’s program travels to Egypt, Uganda, and China in search of some solutions:

  • Nicola Bullard, a senior associate with Focus on the Global South chats with Sara Musa el Saeed from Sudan about how China is supporting a government guilty of killing its own citizens  
  • Moataz El Fegiery, the Programmes Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, explains why the Arabs as well as the Christians seem to be keeping clear of the conflict   
  • Dismas Nkunda, a co-Director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative in Uganda, outlines the initiatives that are being taken in other parts of Africa to stop the violence and
  • Darfurians explain what they want you to understand about their plight.  

From Sudan, today’s CD – Ceasefire – reflects hope for a peaceful future, as Emmanuel Jal, a Christian rapper from the Sudanese south, gets together with Abdel Gadir Salim, a Moslem musician from the North, to show what colourful and dynamic sounds are produced when two different cultures work side-by-side.

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Radio New Internationalist – Common senses

Submitted by ni-radio on May 10, 2007 - 12:00am.

While mainstream media steer a hard right away from good news stories, the everyday ‘wins’ of ordinary people are getting ignored. As a consequence, opportunities to be inspired by and learn from the victories of progressive people in other countries get lost. This program showcases progressive people who are using common senses to get their messages across: people presenting their messages through our five bodily senses – taste, sight, hearing, touch and smell – in a way that dares us to dream and makes our souls smile. Together with co-host Dinyar Godrej – who for the past few months has been busy collecting big visions from the Majority World, we chat with:

  • Walter Otis Tapfumaneyi, from Panos Southern Africa, about Radio Listening Clubs – a remarkably democratic initiative through which discussions amongst rural Africans are recorded, then played on national radio programs to relevant parliamentarians or policy makers for their response.
  • Damian Platt from AfroReggae about how song and music is being used in Brazil to keep people alive.  
  • Francisco Pancho Ramos Stierle about a tasty bit of resistance from Latin America: an organic bread being baked to challenge Mexico’s largest bread-baking company thought by some Mexicans to be financing fraud by the current Government.

In addition, some poetry readings so that we can experience how sound can touch the heart. And ambient funk from Asia from our album of the week Ryukyu Underground. This CD takes original Japanese recordings and mixes them for dance.

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Radio New Internationalist – The strength in the roots

Submitted by ni-radio on May 4, 2007 - 12:00am.

This program’s co-host, Richard Meeran, is a true internationalist. A human rights lawyer whose cases are challenging governments and countries across Africa, he’s just been in India searching for his mother’s childhood. He gives us a very personal account of what he finds in India… and also in South Africa where black gold miners are dying because their workplaces that have treated them like disposable people. As Richard, and other progressive people from Pakistan, Africa and the United States, share their inspiring stories of strategies that are helping to change the world, we hear how some of the strongest tools available are often rooted in the experience and ingenuity of the people and communities with whom they’re working.

  • We all know of the power of the United States of America. So what would happen if the nations of Africa united? A leading supporter of this initiative, Demba Moussa Dembele from the African Forum on Alternatives based in Senegal, tells us about how the concept is becoming a reality.
  • Children have been kidnapped, bought or conscripted into a number of Middle Eastern countries to race camels. Zubair Shad is the Assistant Director of the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau in Lahore in Pakistan and he’s helping to repatriate 650 young Pakistanis who’ve been child jockeys in the United Arab Emirates.
  • Daniel Hunter, a Training Associate with that remarkable organization, Training for Change, assists communities to stand up to dictators and despots… and win. He tells about the strategies that are winning hearts and minds in his latest campaign.

Hear also musical gems from Introducing Shiyani Ngcobo, which captures the Zulu sounds and poetry of maskandi. Shiyani started his musical career when he begged his brother to show him how to make his first igogogo, which is a guitar made from a five litre-oil can. Dip into how far he’s come since then! 

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Radio New Internationalist – Inner Conflict

Submitted by ni-radio on March 16, 2007 - 9:42am.

As a radio program that’s always in search of new horizons, this week’s co-host is a pioneering reporter from Somalia – Ahmed Abdisalam Adan – who explains the most recent conflict in his country from his HornAfrik newsroom bunker in the capital, Mogadishu. From here, we step out into the line of fire in search of successful campaigns to rid the world of war and weapons.

  • Johan Galtung – a global warrior for non-violent resolution to conflict – sets-out a world without armies;
  • Kameelah Rasheed gives a passionate defence of the hijab, and explains how one piece of cloth has become a battleground between the sexes in South Africa;
  • Mathias Bienstman talks about how the launch of a new bank has incriminated arms-trade funders.

And – as March marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies – New Internationalist contributor Clare Goff compares the campaign tactics that won the public then, with those that work now.

In this program, we again feature the CD Rhythm of the River, which showcases a range of artists from the World Music Network’s Riverboat Records series. The extensive variety of sounds and synergies on this CD draws on music from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

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