"Good Muslim, Bad Muslim": Second Thoughts on 'Terrorism' in Africa

With all the enthusiasm among the African Union over expanding the U.S. "war on terrorism" deep into Africa today, perhaps it is wise to consider the voice of one of the continent's finest public intellectuals Mahmood Mamdani of Uganda. In his 2005 work Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, Mamdani explains that the attempt to identify the causes for extremism as rooted in a conservative cultural interpretation of Islam is based in a series of flawed assumptions about the history and politics of the modern world---a world shaped by Cold War power relations.

Your can read parts of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror via google books by clicking here.

African Union Reaches the Height of Stupidity in Somalia

How in the hell did the African Union get caught in a U.S. created quagmire in Somalia? Was this the conception of a united Africa that Kwame Nkrumah spoke about in the early days of the then Organization of African Unity? When will African leaders tire of endless war and bloodshed? Maybe when the U.S. money and guns stop flowing.

The civil war in Somalia is not a war of necessity or an existential battle between good and evil but is the indiscriminate killing of Somali people by outsiders and a government in Mogadishu seen as illegitimate by the majority of the Somali people. Following a shocking suicide bombing by a Somalia insurgent group in Uganda during the World Cup Finals game, Guinea in West Africa has promised to send some of its troops into this mess. Isn't this the same military responsible for conducting a coup then raping and killing innocent Guineans in 2009? A perfect fit for the daily murder and destruction being rained on the Somali people day after day.

The U.S. military claims that the war in Somalia is a defensive action against Al-Qaeda Islamists. And the African Union has taken the bait (plus billions of dollars in U.S. weapons and cash). But a researcher at the the Council on Foreign Relations did an assessment of U.S. intelligence in 2007, that Somalia was actually under no threat whatsoever from foreign jihadist movements or from foreign terrorist groups. According to the intelligence reports at the time, Al-Qaeda's experience recruiting in Somalia was so terrible that U.S. intelligence basically said, "There's no way they can operate there." So what happened?

In 2006, a coalition of Somali leaders defeated US-backed warlords and established peace in the capital of Mogadishu for the first time in decades. The United States however, had other plans and exaggerated the threat of Al-Qaeda in order to build public support for an orchestrated Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. Ethiopia and U.S. special forces led warlords in the violent removal of the moderate Islamist Somali government and worked to create civil war in Somalia. Thousands of of civilians including women and children were murdered sometimes targeted in their homes, schools and places of worship by the U.S.-instigated civil war. The violence of a newly installed regime of warlords in Somalia continued and eventually led to hardline factions with ties to other militias fighting in Afghanistan and Yemen resisting foreign occupation using terrorist tactics to fight back.

What the African Union fails to realize is that the most effective role that body can play in Somalia is as mediator between factions. Instead, the African Union has chosen to fight a war in defense of a government of mostly U.S.-backed warlords who have been the central impediment to peace in Somalia for several decades. The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece today documenting the problem African Union forces face as they shell civilians in Somalia and further feed the cynicism about external interference in the country. The African Union lead by Uganda has to be about the most gullible or greedy leaders on the planet.

Note: You can read a detailed breakdown here of how the bumbling idiots in the U.S. military created Islamic extremism in Somalia through its own interference and has facilitated a conflict that could send the whole region up in flames.

Combating Africa's Anti-Gay 'Movement'

There is a widespread but unsubstantiated paranoia that the West is trying to spread homosexuality here in Africa. In the African political culture of the 21st century the enemy of African self-determination is not the mindless consumerism, exploitation of natural resources or military intrusion but 'the gays'. Ironically, homophobia is about the closest thing to an anti-imperialist movement in existence here today. This is the sick reality in a continent that has long-buried the progressive memories of Kwame Nkrumah, Samora Machel and Thomas Sankara.

Senegal is one of at least 38 African countries, which sentences homosexuals and their heterosexual allies to long-term prison sentences. The most infamous case has come as the Ugandan legislature moved to pass a strict bill that would detain and execute homosexual violators. There are several reasons to oppose this bill in particular for the social justice movement. For starters this legislation would be a huge setback for the fight against HIV and AIDS in Uganda; a country that has shown significant progress in fighting the disease in recent years. The stigma, criminalization and discrimination of men who have sex with men is likely to deter them from pursuing HIV prevention and treatment services from the government. This would no doubt be of minor consequence to an evangelical Christian, as many have come to Africa preaching Jesus' salvation as the cure for AIDS.

The Ugandan anti-gay legislation is yet another example of the impact ultra-conservative Christian missionaries have in Africa. The New York Times reported how in the lead up to the legislation, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. Furthermore, although the Ugandan legislation has been the subject of bi-partisan rebuke in the U.S., there is a prominent right-wing movement there that uses similar hate-filled rhetoric freely on cable television and the pulpit with little criticism.

Of course, Western Christians are not the only source of homophobia in the continent. My predominantly Muslim 11th grade American Government class recently remarked to me their fears of a vast American conspiracy to spread homosexuality throughout Africa. To resolve the problem, half of the students recommended the punishment of death by a show of hands. A few discussed in great detail how to carry such executions out and quoted specific passages from the Islamic Hadith to justify the actions.

Homophobia is only one of several fruits born from the destruction of the African left. Throughout the continent there is routine violence against poor immigrants coming from neighboring countries. South Africa is one of the most extreme examples of reactionary violence toward other Africans who share virtually the same histories, and class struggles against neo-liberal globalization. Today, as Africa fights poverty, disease and external exploitation it must also face a growing and usually unchallenged right-wing political culture that pervades much of the continent's government's and civil society. When caught between the choice of cultural relativism and social justice, we should always choose the latter.