Rwanda’s proposed refugee deal with Britain is another strike against President Paul Kagame’s claim that he is an authentic and fearless pan-Africanist who advocates for the less fortunate.
Rwandans are welcoming, but the government’s priority must be to solve the internal political problems which produce refugees.
“Go back to Africa” has taken on a new meaning, with Britain’s controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, and outsource its “immigration problem”.
After years of complaint about being “overwhelmed” by trickles of new arrivals, Europe has absorbed millions of refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine virtually overnight. However, the solidarity that underpins this dramatic turnaround would appear to exclude non-Europeans.
Unless the leaders make good on their statements about using the greater scale of the economic bloc to demand better terms of trade globally, the expanded Community is likely to be a continuation of the already damaging experience suffered by the ordinary people.
Alternatively, there could emerge a leadership that seeks to respect each ambition, and find a happy medium between them, by first addressing the question: what are these cities for, and how will they feed and maintain themselves
Much like in 1977, all the conditions have come together that could turn conflicting interests into ruinous warfare across the region.
Graham Harrison argues that all development is capitalist development. Based on his recent book, Developmentalism, he argues that development is not only risky and likely to fail but also very unpleasant. Contemporary notions of development see it is as a stable, incremental, and positive process but this is a fantasy in which capitalist development is reimagined as a planned, inclusive, and socially just modernisation.
It is a myth that the only way to increase productivity on existing agricultural lands is through Green Revolution programmes and evidence shows that they are among the principal causes of unsustainable land use.
Vividly sourcing her story with direct testimony from key participants, Wrong uses the story of the murder of Patrick Karegeya, once Rwanda’s head of external intelligence and a quicksilver operator of supple charm, to paint the portrait of a modern African dictatorship created in the chilling likeness of Paul Kagame, the president who sanctioned his former friend’s assassination.
The use of spyware to surveil, harass, and intimidate journalists and activists — and those close to them has become a key activity for many governments worldwide.
The language of colonialism has remained a determined and fixed feature of mainstream accounts of Africa. The racist imagery of Africa remains unchanged and essentially monstrous.