DIGITAL AFRICA: AFRICA IS BORN IN ME

9/19/2006

Nobody should have nucleur weapons

Ted Turner, speaking at this event: The only solution for the threat of nucleur weapons in the world is:
nobody should have them!

Has the UN got the muscle to make this happen? That's the question.

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Dis-United United Nations

Whenever I hear discussions about UN reform, I immediately start singing Fela Kuti’s song, Beasts of No Nation. Beasts of No Nation is the first song Fela wrote after he was released from prison in Nigeria in 1986. This song speaks to me about what this organization really is. In his own words, a Dis-United United Nations.

Will they listen? Perhaps as they did in Rwanda! And now in Darfur. And many more other places. You know what I mean.

After Fela came out of prison, many people wanted him to sing about life in prison. He decided, instead, to sing about the outside world where there are “animals who talk like human beings” (at UN conferences)! The outside world, he sings; while accompanied by hypnotic drums, guitars, horns, etc, is a crazy world.

This is what he says (the original song is in Nigerian Pidgin) about the United Nations and our world leaders “who hold meeting in de place dem call United Nations”:

Many leaders as you see them are in disguise
Animals in human skin
Animal puts on a tie
Animal wears agbada
Animal puts on a suit

These leaders in disguise
They hold meetings everywhere, they reach America
They call the place the United Nations
Hear oh another animal talk

What is united inside United Nations?
Who and who is united for United Nations?
There is no unity between Thatcher and Argentina
There is no unity between Reagan and Libya
Israel versus Lebanon
Iran versus Iraq
East West block versus West block East
Dis-United United Nations
One veto vote isequal to 92 (Or more)
What kind of sense is that, it is animal sense!
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Meditate on Fela's words. And follow the conversation.

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9/18/2006

UN/Reuters/Global Voices: Will They Listen?

On Tuesday, September 19, 2006, Reuters political news editor, Paul Holmes, will discuss with U.N.’s largest private donor, Ted Turner, among other things, UN reform and the media world. This is part of Newsmakers, a series of Reuters events. About 10 years ago, Turner donated $ 1 billion for United Nations programs. Global Voices will participate in the event by sharing your views with Ted Turner. More information about the event, which will be webcast live online, can be found here and here.

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Global Voices: grand prize winner for excellence and innovation

Global Voices receives the Grand Prize for excellence and innovation in journalism (so blogging is journalism, right?) at the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. What a joy! Read a detailed post at Global Voices.

Last year, Global Voices won a Best of Blog Award.

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9/11/2006

Laws of Kenya Online

Browse the laws of Kenya for free.

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8/17/2006

Wikimania + Afrophonewikis

If you are interested in Wikipedias in African languages, you should join AfrophoneWikis. AfrophoneWikis is a discussion group on developing Wikipedias in African languages. I am involved with Swahili Wikipedia, which, as I am writing this, has over 1,051 articles!

I recently attended Wikimania conference in Boston. Ethan has written a very insightful article about critical issues and questions that came out of the conference. My posts about the conference are in Kiswahili.

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7/30/2006

African languages and Wikipedia

Here is a list of Wikipedia in African languages and languages spoken in Africa (thanks Don!):

Swahili http://sw.wikipedia.org/
Arabic http://ar.wikipedia.org/
Afrikaans http://af.wiktionary.org/
Amharic http://am.wikipedia.org/
Wolof http://wo.wikipedia.org/
Lingala http://ln.wikipedia.org/
Malagasy http://mg.wikipedia.org/
Kongo http://kg.wikipedia.org/
Bambara http://bm.wikipedia.org/
Zulu http://zu.wikipedia.org/
Yoruba http://yo.wikipedia.org/
Shona http://sn.wikipedia.org/
Somali http://so.wikipedia.org/
Xhosa http://xh.wikipedia.org/
Kinyarwanda http://rw.wikipedia.org/
Setswana http://tn.wikipedia.org/
Tumbuka http://tum.wikipedia.org/
Twi http://tw.wikipedia.org/
Peul http://ff.wikipedia.org/
Kirundi http://rn.wikipedia.org/
Igbo http://ig.wikipedia.org/
Hausa http://ha.wikipedia.org/
Afar http://aa.wikipedia.org/
Oromo http://om.wikipedia.org/
Sango http://sg.wikipedia.org/
Tsonga http://ts.wikipedia.org/
Kikuyu http://ki.wikipedia.org/
Swati http://ss.wikipedia.org/
Chewa / Nyanja http://ny.wikipedia.org/
Ndonga http://ng.wikipedia.org/
Herero http://hz.wikipedia.org/
Luganda http://lg.wikipedia.org/
Venda http://ve.wikipedia.org/
Kuanyama http://kj.wikipedia.org/
Tigrinya http://ti.wikipedia.org/
Akan http://ak.wikipedia.org/
Ewe http://ee.wikipedia.org/
Kanuri http://kr.wikipedia.org/

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7/16/2006

How to Help Technology Help African Entrepreneurs?

Christine Bowers has brought to my attention an online discussion taking place: How to Help Technology Help African Entrepreneurs?

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7/15/2006

Use your computer to fight African Humanitarian causes

AFRICA@home is a website for volunteer computing projects which allow your computer to contribute to African humanitarian causes.

As part of this project, volunteer computing is used to fight malaria in Africa. More...

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5/08/2006

ICT Africa 2006

In case you are wondering...I was here.
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Now, mark your calendar: ICT Africa 2006.

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12/03/2005

Global Voices Is Hiring!

Global Voices is hiring a managing editor.

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11/19/2005

Bloggers who covered WSIS in Tunisia

After a long week working on the details of the project I am leading to write a people's constitution in Tanzania using simple social software, I have spent the day reading informative posts from bloggers who attended the WSIS in Tunisia. Here are some of them: Andy, Ethan, WSIS blogs, i-witness (PANOS), APC blog, Civiblog, Rebecca, and ICANN Watch.

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WSIS: Speakers at Expression Under Repression

A panel entitled "Expression Under Repression" was hosted by Hivos and organized by Global Voices during the WSIS summit in Tunisia. Read Ethan's posts about the panel: the opening remarks, Taurai Maduna (from Kubatana), Nart Villeneuve (from Citizen Lab), and Isaac Mao.

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