The Point

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
- Thomas Paine

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime. ― W.E.B. Du Bois

Aspettando brasile 2014: quando solo i talenti non bastano

Lo sport, soprattutto il calcio, sembra uno dei campi nella globalizzazione in cui l'Africa potrebbe competere con le potenze occidentali a pari livello, e forse anche prendere il sopravvento. Purtroppo, la presenza di talenti inestimabili nel continente è guastata da una gestione inadeguata fatta d'improvvisazione, clientelismo, corruzione, incompetenza tecnica, e una strumentalizzazione delle vittorie per fini politici che non aiuta il progresso dello sport, che insieme alla religione, al cinema ed alla musica stanno diventando gli ultimi ambasciatori della cultura popolare e della creatività africana nel mondo globalizzato.

Read More.

AFRICAN DEMOCRACIES: VOTING WITHOUT CHOOSING

The democratic wind of change that blew (is blowing), with much vigor, through the continent in the early nineties seems to be climbing a very stiff hill; and in some countries, it seems to be making some few steps backward. If ‘politics is less ‘the art of the possible’ and more ‘the art of making possible that which is necessary’ as Cardoso posits, then many aspects are still blocking the way towards true democratic politics in many parts of the continent. What then are some of the causes of this slowdown and backward tendencies?

Read More

Cameroon: from the colony to the postcolony: What has changed in the GOVERNMENTALITY?

For many Cameroonians, the “special significance” of the past 50 years is overloaded with toil and increasing pauperization, which does not allow any space for celebration, but for possible solutions towards the betterment of the livelihood of the people. Nonetheless, it will be doing a disservice to the industrious citizen who continue to work hard to shape their future to say that things have not changed from the colony to the postcolony.

Read More 

Camerun: “la questione anglofona”

Il Camerun, piccolo Paese di circa 20 milioni di abitanti situato nell’Africa Centrale, ospita una grande diversità etnica, culturale e linguistica che gli valse il soprannome di “Africa in miniatura”. In questo contesto di difficoltà creato dall’uso strumentale delle differenze etniche da alcuni politici e opinionisti, si rinfocola la questione linguistica con le minacce secessioniste nelle due province anglofone.

Read More.

cameroon: Don’t be hoodwinked by operation sparrowhawk

The Cameroon political barograph seems to be controlled by the sporadic and most often handpicked arrest of senior government officials. The spotlight arrests seem to put under the carpet the fogeyish and namby-pamby attitude of the present chiliarchy.

Read More.

Constitution without Constitutionalism: A Malady of African Democracies