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March
11, 2002
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time Chaos
March
10, 2002
Thomas
Croft
Year
of Living Dangerously
March
9, 2002
Bill Cook
Sharon's
Bulldozer
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Nightmare in Israel
March
8, 2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
When
Business Men
Make Boo-Boos
CounterPunch
Exclusive
Enron's
Spooky
Image Consultant
Rep. Ron
Paul
Stop
the War on Colombia
Andre
Achong
The
Failed War on Drugs
John B.
Kelly
Michael
Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy
March
7, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Congressman
McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda
Mike Rogers
Will
the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo
Walt Brasch
Patriot
Act and Free Speech
John Jonik
Insurance
Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Bumper
Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium
March
6, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
A
Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?
Tom Turnipseed
War
Is Wrong
David
Vest
Billy
Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero
CounterPunch
Wire
Berezovsky
Fingers Putin
in Bombings
Edward
Said
Thoughts
About America
March
5, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ann
Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
Delkhasteh and Wright
What
Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics
Mariya
Tsvekova
Putin's
Georgian Gambit
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
February
28, 2002
James
T. Phillips
Baghdad,
Spring 1992
Gideon
Samet
Sharon
Must Go
Rep. Ron
Paul
Before
We Bomb Iraq
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecuadorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
February
26, 2002
Jonathan
Steele
Kabul's
Loss
Vasily
Streltsov
The
Pentagon in
the Transcaucusas
CounterPunch
Wire
How
Corporations Use Shadowy "527" Groups to Influence
Politicians
Lt. Col.
Robert Bowman
ABM
Treaty: Alive or Dead?
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
A
Prayer for America
February
25, 2002
John Clarke
Interrogated
at US Border
Blankfort,
Poirier, Zeltzer
ADL
Blinks, Settles Spying Case
Alex Lynch
Naked
from Sin:
The Ordeal of Nahla
and Sami Al-Arian
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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March 11, 2002
Western Values Becoming Discredited
in Eyes of Africans
By Wole Akande
In the fifties and sixties, the peoples of the
newly independent African countries were told Western values
would inspire modernization and lead oppressed people to demand
the human rights enjoyed by people in the Western World. Today
Africans find it ironic that the values broadcasted from the
West represent oppression of the poor and the decay of civilization.
Consequently, Western values are fast becoming discredited
and devalued in the eyes of many Africans.
When women in Western popular culture,
broadcasted throughout the globe, increasingly become sexual
objects, it logically becomes harder for women living in traditional,
patriarchal societies to claim basic rights such as dressing
as they like or the choice of their partners on their own.
When the World Bank and the IMF - due
to their structure, totally dominated by Western powers in decision-making
- demand higher prices of basic goods in Nigeria while subsidies
on the same goods are accepted in rich countries, thus preventing
imports from poor countries, Western economic liberalism is
not seen as a freedom, but as oppression.
When the veto holders of the UN Security
Council, 55 years after the Second World War are still composed
of four Western powers and one Eastern power, African countries
and their citizens have no illusions about which culture represents
power and thus oppression. It is clear that when it comes to
important decisions, their voices are not heard.
Naturally, Africans are losing their
faith in the economic values represented by Western countries,
values that had indeed "developed" these countries
over the last two centuries. Attempts to copy these values in
Africa have failed partly because market structures imposed
by Western powers did not permit equal access to Western markets.
Similarly, protective measures, historically used in the West,
naturally promote and protect Western investments.
In the seventies, African governments
put their trust in international agencies, such as the UN and
the World Bank, and tried unsuccessfully to gain some influence
by adapting Western economic values to serve their own needs.
They were allowed to talk, but were not heard. Instead, they
found themselves in the debt trap of the nineties, again demonstrating
that Western economic values were meant to exploit them.
Several attempts to alter the power-sharing
model of international agencies have utterly failed, lowering
confidence in the Western values promoted by UN agencies as
a whole. Western domination over world agencies and treaties
is demonstrated clearly by the failures of Kyoto/Marrakech
last year, as well as the failure to establish an international
tribunal of war crimes and the trends in world trade policy.
Why should Gambia (in West Africa) listen
to UNIFEM's (UN agency promoting women's rights) demand for
an abandonment of the harmful tradition of female genital mutilation
when the United States uses its muscles to prevent the implementation
of the Kyoto Protocol against global warming, which could result
in the flooding of half of Gambia's territory?
Why should Guinea spend enormous resources
on hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees
when rich Australia, seven months ago, simply ignored calls
by the UNHCR (UN refugees agency) to let a ship with some hundreds
of desperate Afghan refugees enter its territory?
UN agencies represent humanist values
defined by the West after the American and French revolutions,
though most of these values are rooted in non-Western societies
and religions. These agencies however promote their Western
interpretation and classification. Respect of these values
is undermined by the language of power, expressed louder and
louder by Western governments when international agreements
go against them. It seems critics are only "allowed"
when their criticism is expressed towards Sudan, Rwanda or
Somalia.
Human rights for several decades have
been the flagship of Western values among oppressed masses in
Africa. People demanded political representation and democracy.
Opposition politicians demanded freedom of speech and association
and a free press. Workers demanded labor and social rights.
Women demanded gender equality. Western governments, the UN
and organizations willingly supported them.
But somehow, Africans found out, not
all human rights were equally important to Western pressure
groups and governments. Social rights, it appears, are sleeping
human rights outside the Western world. Labor rights were from
time to time branded as communism, which was bad. So bad, that
not even the other human rights counted if a dictatorial African
government did all it could to fight communism.
Human rights did not matter that much
if Western economic interests were substantial - oil being the
most important example. Nowadays, human rights do not matter
at all if a government is totally dedicated to wage "war
on terrorism." Worst of all, human rights groups now stand
increasingly isolated, as they have had to criticize growing
human rights violations in the former model democratic states
of the United States and Great Britain. In November 2001, Amnesty
International cried out about the trend in Britain, complaining
about the then proposed emergency legislation and a "shadow
criminal justice system" where "indefinite detention"
without trial could become the result.
The United States started the trend of
reversing the human rights situation long before September 11th.
Its record of capital punishment, outlawed in most of the world,
generates constant criticism and for decades has complicated
the promotion of human rights on other continents. The United
States support for repressive, anti-communist regimes further
discredited its engagement in human rights.
Not surprisingly, African people, aware
of these trends, are losing confidence in the Western expression
of values relating to "freedom." These days, African
Governments can easily and rightly point to the United States
or Great Britain to excuse their own human rights violations.
A legitimization of human rights demands can no longer be found
by pointing to Western, successful values. They are discredited.
Ongoing demands for rights must thus search for other sources
of legitimization, such as traditional values or simple logic.
On the other hand, Western materialism
and popular culture appears to be among the few Western values
still reaching out to the African masses. Propagated worldwide
through radio and television, Western life has been seen as
an ideal - especially Western consumption.
In its heydays, American entertainment
reached out to a global audience. Nigerians cried when Rocky
got beaten and youngsters in the streets of Lagos knew how to
dance exactly like Michael Jackson. Nowadays, the vulgarity
routinely displayed by many Western pop stars is shocking to
both Africans and Westerners alike. Surely Western popular
cultural values are in decay.
But what is there to fill up the vacuum
of decaying Western values? The expression "African values,"
now typically propagated by Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe, is generally
discredited as being the government propaganda of dictators.
There is indeed a general confusion about
which set of values might take the place of the once universal
Western value set. However, the search for new or old values
is ongoing. A search for historic, cultural roots can be observed
in all non-Western societies. Predictably, any revivalist movement
is bound to meet resistance especially since "Asian,"
"African" and "Muslim" values have also been
questioned as a result of their use of the most repressive
parts of their cultural roots.
Even so, the peoples of Africa nowadays
act more self-confident on behalf of their roots than only a
decade ago. Local cultural expressions, beginning with the arts,
lead on a path towards cultural autonomy, which again should
influence the value set.
Might one, therefore, express a hope
that the bearers of liberty and true cultural values in this
century will not be the Western world? The fight against repression,
increasingly without significant Western support, still is
in its beginnings in many African nations. Fought with more
truly indigenous values, it might even have a better chance
of succeeding. Then the answer to the question may very well
be positive.
Wole Akande
lives in Nigeria. He writes for YellowTimes. Akande encourages
your comments: wakande@YellowTimes.org
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