AFRICA: A STORY OF GROWTH

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Africa represents what we like to call "frontier" markets. To provide some perspective, you can think about global markets in three distinct segments. "Developed" markets like the U.S. and Europe sit at the top—they have strong regulation, a lot of liquidity, and broad, diversified industries. "Emerging" markets like China and India are a level down from there in terms of development. And "frontier" markets, like most of Africa and the Middle East, are areas where people haven't really invested before—they're nascent markets that have been very illiquid. Historically, you haven't been able to get much exposure to them, but now they are becoming investable thanks to greater integrity in the general business environment, a number of infrastructural improvements, and greater stability overall thanks to social, economical and political reforms. And because these markets are starting from such a low base, they're growing very quickly.

TIME FOR BLACKS TO STEP UP!

With a Obama being re-elected and the Pope stepping down, it's time for Black folks to reassert their leadership in the world. What we are witnessing is a sea change of mammoth proportions. The African diaspora has to be ready. Egypt ruled the world for thousands years. I think this is the dawning of an African renaissance. More to follow!

BLACK BOXER FIGHTS WORLD CHAMPION IN 1810

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Tom_Cribb_vs._Tom_Molineaux_(1st_meeting)

FROM SPARTACUS EDUCATIONAL 

Tom Molineaux was born a slave in Virginia in 1784. Trained by his father, Zachary Molineaux, he boxed with other slaves in order to entertain plantation owners. His owner won $100,000 by betting on Molineaux and as a result was granted his freedom and a payment of $500.

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Molineaux moved to New York but after discovering he could make more money fighting in England he decided to get a job as a deckhand on a boat sailing for Liverpool. In his first fight in England took place against Tom Blake on 21st August, 1810. Molineaux won by knocking out Blake in the 8th round.

In December, 1810, Molineaux fought Tom Cribb at Copthorne, near East Grinstead, for the heavyweight championship of England. After 19 rounds Molineaux had Cribb in trouble on the ropes. Cribb's supporters now entered the ring and during the scrimmage Molineaux had one of his fingers broken. Molineaux continued to fight and in the 28th round appeared to knock out Cribb.

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 However, his seconds complained that Molineaux had been hiding lead bullets in his fists. While this accusation was being disproved, Cribb recovered and was able to continue. Molineaux still remained favourite to win but unluckily he slipped and hit his head on one of the ring posts. He fought on but by the 39th round he was unable to defend himself and Cribb was declared the winner.

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TRUTHS BEHIND AFRICAN POVERTY

The Misperceptions About African Poverty from 

From FONDAD: Forum of Debt and Development 

FULL ARTICLE 

The era of structural adjustment, which can be dated approximately to the last two decades of the twentieth century, was a failure for African economic development. Africa was the only major developing country region with negative per capita growth during 1980 to 2000; its health conditions are by far the worst on the planet; its soaring population is exacerbating ecological stresses; and despite the policy-based development lending of structural adjustment, it remains mired in poverty and debt. 

What went wrong?

In the extreme interpretation of the Washington Consensus by its proponents, as well as by its critics, its unambiguous promise is that if a developing country were to implement conservative macroeconomic policies while expanding the role of the private market at the expense of the state, then it would achieve sustained high growth rates on its own. By extension, if a developing country is failing to grow, the problem must be either macroeconomic mismanagement or a hindering of the private market expansion in the country, usually attributed to corruption or more broadly “bad governance”.   

A BETTER EXPLANATION

A better explanation of Africa’s poverty trap would move beyond the limitations of the Washington Consensus to recognise that before privatisation and market liberalisation can unleash private sector-led economic growth in Africa, a massive amount of public investment in health, education, and infrastructure is required, which African countries cannot afford. Africa’s poverty trap is the outcome of a complex web of many interactive factors, including structural conditions and socio-political history:

• Very high transport costs and small markets; 
• Low-productivity agriculture;  
• Very high disease burden;  
• A legacy of adverse geopolitics;  
• Very slow diffusion of technology from abroad.

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Featured Book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Youtube Video: Apologies of an Economic Hit Man

From: Wikipedia Article: Neocolonialism

The political-science term neo-colonialism became popular usage in reference to the continued European control — economic, cultural, etc. — of African countries that had been decolonized in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–45). Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana (1960–66), coined the term neo-colonialism in the book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism (1965)^[5][6] As a political scientist, Nkrumah theoretically developed and extended, to the post–War 20th century, the socio-economic and political arguments presented by Lenin in the pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), about 19th-century imperialism as the logical extension of geopolitical power to meet the financial investment needs of the political economy of capitalism.^[7]

Kwame Nkrumah
http://therisingcontinent.wordpress.com
/2012/07/05/kilombo-2012-annual-event-at-woezor-hotel-ho-ghana-from-24th-to-26th-august-2012/
dr-kwame-nkrumah-ghanas-first-president/

 In Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah said that:In place of colonialism, as the main instrument of imperialism, we have today neo-colonialism . . . [which] like colonialism, is an attempt to export the social conflicts of the capitalist countries. . . . The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment, under neo-colonialism, increases, rather than decreases, the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The struggle against neo-colonialism is not aimed at excluding the capital of the developed world from operating in less developed countries. It is aimed at preventing the financial power of the developed countries being used in such a way as to impoverish the less developed.^[8]

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ALLEN TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH (Oakland, California)

Picture from SFGate Blog

From https://www.allen-temple.org/about-atbc/history

Allen Temple Baptist Church was organized in 1919 as a Northern Baptist mission by the Reverend J.L. Allen. The Church was originally located in a store front on the corner of East 14th and Seminary Avenue in East Oakland. 

There were 21 original members and the modest congregation conducted services on borrowed folding chairs for seating. The Church subsequently moved to a house on 85th Avenue and was known as the 85th Avenue Baptist Church. Seven years later after J.D. Wilson and R.H. Thomas served sacrificially as mission pastors under the Northern Baptist Convention, the membership changed the name to the Allen Temple Baptist Church. 

During this period, the congregation and their pastors began to forge an identity in the area of social justice through active involvement in the NAACP and the Marcus Garvey Movement. Under the leadership of Pastor G.W. Wildy, the church broke ground on a small chapel on October 29, 1939. During the Wildy administration, great pastoral work was done to foster Christian fellowship across racial lines.Allen Temple continued to mature under the polished and disciplined leadership of Pastor A.L. Carpenter. During the tenure of his successor, the Reverend C.C. Bailey, on July 17, 1960, the church broke ground on a 550 seat sanctuary and educational facility. Pastor Bailey was a distinguished young pastor who broadened the congregation’s witness in the larger community as he led the effort to bring an Opportunities Industrial Center (OIC) to Oakland which provided vocational training for the unemployed. He also partnered with the Oakland Public Schools to provide an Adult Education Neighborhood Center at Allen Temple. 

CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT THE HISTORY OF BLACK CHURCHES 

Through the dynamic, visionary leadership of Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., Allen Temple grew to a membership of 5,500 and developed a large array of holistic community ministries focused on redeeming and transforming the whole person and whole community. To administer this ever-growing ministry, Pastor Smith, Sr. assembled a strong pastoral staff, which included as Co-Pastor the Reverend J. Alfred Smith, Jr.. During this administration, the congregation constructed a 1,200 seat sanctuary to accommodate two Sunday morning worship services. Also, the Church secured all of the property on the square block it occupies and dedicated a 64,000 square foot Family Life Center in April 1999. 

In February, 2009, Reverend Dr. Smith, Sr. retired after 40 years as Senior Pastor of Allen Temple. It was the pleasure of a united Church to name Dr. Smith, Sr. as Allen Temple’s Pastor Emeritus and to call a son of Allen Temple, the Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Jr., to serve as Senior Pastor. 

The Church continues to grow and excel under the leadership of Pastor Smith, Jr.. Under the Smith Jr. Administration in March 2010, the Church installed a daughter of Allen Temple, the Reverend Jacqueline A. Thompson, as the first woman Assistant Pastor in our history. The Church has also seen the birth and use of technology as a ministry tool and witness, including a retooled website and the launch of our cyber-church. 

As our Church mission states, Allen Temple and her 70 ministries continues to evangelize, educate and enlist all who would come into our community.  

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THE TRUTH ABOUT MALI: YESTERDAY AND TODAY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MALI from CIA Factbook Full Article

"The Sudanese Republic and Senegal became independent of France in 1960 as the Mali Federation. When Senegal withdrew after only a few months, what formerly made up the Sudanese Republic was renamed Mali. Rule by dictatorship was brought to a close in 1991 by a military coup that ushered in a period of democratic rule. President Alpha KONARE won Mali's first two democratic presidential elections in 1992 and 1997. In keeping with Mali's two-term constitutional limit, he stepped down in 2002 and was succeeded by Amadou TOURE, who was elected to a second term in 2007 elections that were widely judged to be free and fair. Malian returnees from Libya in 2011 exacerbated tensions in northern Mali and Tuareg ethnic militias started a rebellion in January 2012. Low-mid level soldiers, frustrated with the poor handling of the rebellion overthrew TOURE on 22 March. Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya SANOGO and his junta under the mediation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) returned power to a civilian administration in April with the appointment of interim President Dioncounda TRAORE. Interim Prime Minister Chieck Modibo DIARRA immediately appointed a unity cabinet. The post-coup chaos led to rebels expelling the Malian military from the three northern regions of the country, which remain under the control of a Tuareg militia, Ansar al-Din, and its terrorist group allies. Hundreds of thousands of northern Malians fled the violence to southern Mali and neighboring countries, exacerbating regional food insecurity in host communities. TRAORE was attacked by an angry mob in May and spent two months recovering in Paris, he returned in July.  CLICK GET BOOKS ABOUT MALI TRAORE and DIARRA announced a second unity government in August and in September called upon the international community to assist them in reclaiming land lost to rebels.  SANOGO forced DIARRA to resign in December 2012; Django CISSOKO immediately replaced him and announced a third unity cabinet. The interim government is working with ECOWAS to organize negotiations with Tuareg rebels and the international community to plan a military intervention to retake the three northern regions."  Mali war retaliation: 'World police protecting corporate interests in Africa' A Radical View-video MALI NOW from "TIME WORLD"  "The latest French foray into Mali — aimed at unseating al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militias encamped in the country’s vast north — has already summoned the specter of Afghanistan over the Sahel. The French may be able to scatter their foe with a sustained air and ground offensive, but stabilizing Mali is a far greater challenge: the government in Bamako, hobbled by a March coup, is seen as weak and dysfunctional; the enemy militants may well be able to reorganize and intensify what’s fast turning into a regional conflagration. How this ends is a question both French and Malian citizens desperately want answered. And looking to history offers mixed results: in the 19th century, the French were oft ruthless and devastating in their conquest of large tracts of Africa, but were at times made to suffer for their hubris." Read more: HERE CLICK HERE TO GET BOOKS ABOUT MALI

THE ZANDJ REBELLION-AFRICAN SLAVES REVOLT AGAINST MUSLIM ELITES

http://bknebel.blogspot.com/2007/10/zanj-revolt-arabic-took-place-in.html

Full Wikipedia Article
From Wikipedia:

"The Zanj Rebellion was the culmination of series of small revolts. It took place near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, over a period of fifteen years (869−883 AD). The insurrection is believed to have involved enslaved Black Africans (Zanj) that had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa. It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves who were imported from across the Muslim empire and claimed over "tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq".^[1] The precise composition of the rebels is debated among historians, both as regards their identity and as to the proportion of slaves and free among them – available historical sources being open to various interpretations.The revolt was said to have been led by Ali bin Muhammad, who claimed to be a descendent of Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib. Several historians, such as Al-Tabari and Al-Masudi, consider this revolt one of the "most vicious and brutal uprisings" of the many disturbances that plagued the Abbasid central government.^[1]The Zanj Revolt helped Ahmad ibn Tulun to create an independent state in Egypt. It is only after defeating the Zanj Revolt that the Abbasids were able to turn their attention to Egypt and end the Tulunid dynasty with great destruction."

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"The Zandj revolt, [between 869 and 883 CE] an authentic social rising, had far-reaching consequences in many fields--political, social, economic. The uprising shattered the unity of the Muslim empire as great provinces broke away from the Caliphate, and it paved the way for the downfall of the old Abbasid regime. The political crisis ushered in by the Zandj revolt had depended the cleavage between the social classes, and the well-to-do classes, being afraid for their privileges, began to put their confidence in the professional armies of Turkish and other mercenaries as the only force capable of keeping order; this heralded the new history of the Muslim Middle East. The revolt also taught a lesson to the Muslim ruling classes; never again do we find in the Muslim East any large scale enterprise based on concentration  of slave labor and it seems the the exploitation of slaves in agriculture and irrigation was abandoned. This in turn led to the next century to the rise of feudalism as the prevailing mode of production in eastern Muslim countries, the slave exploitation giving way to the feudal one.... Another consequence of the Zandj revolt seems to have been the hardening of racial feelings in those times; the black Africans came to be held with contempt, in spite of the teachings of Islam, and there emerged in Muslim literature many previously unknown themes expressing a negative attitude towards blacks." 

BACKGROUND

Dr. John Henrik Clarke: The Rise of Islam & The Fall of Africa (Full Lecture)

The Rise of Islam & The Fall of Africa (Lecture) 

Arab Slave Trade
Wikipedia full article "Arab slave trade

"The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab world, mainly in Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and certain parts ofEurope (such as Iberia and southern Italy) during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of theMiddle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. People traded were not limited to a certain race, ethnicity, or religion, and included Arabs andBerbers, especially during the trade's early days. 

During the 8th and 9th centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Slavic Eastern Europeans (called Saqaliba). However, slaves were drawn from a wide variety of regions and included Mediterranean peoples, Persians, Turkic peoples, peoples from the Caucasus mountain regions (such as Georgia, Armenia and Circassia) and parts of Central Asia and Scandinavia, English, Dutch and Irish, Berbers from North Africa, and various other peoples of varied origins as well as those of African origins. Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of slaves from East Africa increased with the rise of the Oman sultanate which was based in Zanzibar. They came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili coast."