Movers and shakers: social movements in Africa

Haymarket Books (Chicago), 2013

This book is about the role of social movements in contemporary Africa. Its core argument is that social movements—popular movements of the working class, the poor, and other oppressed and marginalized sections of African society—have played a central role in shaping Africa’s contemporary history. In the twentieth century, social movements were central to challenging the material exploitations of Western imperialism and bringing an end to formal European control of the continent. Similarly, they resisted dictatorial and military rule in postcolonial Africa, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s paved the way for the return of democracy to much of the continent. In the last two decades, social movements have critiqued and resisted the imposition of economic liberalization across the continent by the international financial institutions and their allies among African rulers. Despite this extraordinary record, African social movements have not been the subject of systematic analysis. It is the aim of this study to place social movements at the center of the analysis of postcolonial African political change, capturing both their exciting diversity and their capacity to unite as temporary “coalitions of the discontent” in periods of rapid social change. The book is thus designed as a corrective to the tendency to see Africa’s postcolonial half-century as one dominated by political repression, economic decline, and ethnic conflict. Africans have constantly struggled in difficult circumstances to improve their lot, using collective forms of action to challenge unjust and unaccountable systems of political and economic power. This book documents many of those struggles during the post-1945 period in general, and those that took place in southern Africa in the 1990s and 2000s in particular. As well as celebrating the successes of these movements, much of the book therefore asks the implicit question “What went wrong?” If social protest has been at the heart of Africa’s politics, then why is much of the continent so resolutely undemocratic, authoritarian, and poor? How have vibrant movements of the sort analyzed here failed to develop into broader political forces for radical social and political change? Why have their achievements been so consistently hijacked by economic and political elites, both Western and indigenous? Answering this question certainly necessitates a critique of the politics of African nationalism and the nature of postcolonial African elites. It also requires a critical analysis of the politics and composition of social movements themselves. By addressing these concerns, it is the authors’ hope that this book will make a modest contribution to strengthening the activists and movements currently active on the continent.

Stichproben. Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien, 2011

WACSI Op-Eds, 2020

The last decade saw an apparent resurgence of social movements in Africa, especially in the aftermath of the 2011 “Arab Spring” in North Africa. This article presents key characteristics, challenges and limits of some contemporary social movements in Africa. Read more WACSI Op-Eds here:https://www.wacsi.org/opeds.php Read more WACSI Issues Papers here:https://www.wacsi.org/issue_papers.php Read more WACSI Research Reports here: https://www.wacsi.org/research_reports.php

"The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism", edited by Reiland Rabaka (London: Routledge), 2020

Critical African Studies

The debate on different forms of political mobilization and self-organization in Africa refers to the established concepts of civil society and social movements. Knowing that the majority of studies on civil society and social movements focus on the Global North, we ask whether these concepts may be applied to Africa. We need to consider different forms of selforganization and the potential limits of the concepts. At the same time, ‘unusual cases’ from Africa may help us to sharpen our understanding of the concepts and to explore their analytical range and borders. This applies particularly to the observation that the terms civil society and social movement are often used interchangeably, which ignores the existing differences between the concepts. Therefore, we first consider their different perspectives: A study of civil society analyses the features of associations in a public sphere or arena and their role in politics and society. A study of social movements looks at processes of mobilization and action. Second, we point out the normative implications of the two concepts, especially with regard to liberal democracy, degree of politicization and relation to violence.

Adopting an African-focused perspective in the analysis of African experiences of mobility enables us to confront the limits imposed by a historicist-induced articulation of African experiences of mobility. Th is article off ers some concluding remarks to a section on African mobilities and attempts a critical analysis of how an African-based perspective of mobility serves to decenter or provincialize the Western-centric discourses of mobility. Th is undertaking is important in the attempts to fashion African modes of thought that serve as a counternarrative to European thought and to subvert the misrepresentations of im/mobilities of Africa and things African.

Critical African Studies, 2019

2023 IEEE 10th International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA), 2023

We are all aware of the poor image of Islam held by the predominant culture in the West. Despite the treatment of women in the West until very recently, the Western media has focused on other cultures, including the cultures of countries where Islam is the dominant religion, and singled out practices that subjugate and demean women as being the norm in those countries, thereby proving the “superiority” of Western culture. Painting the “other” as backward, filthy, sexually licentious, and morally depraved is an old tactic. The Romans did it to Carthage, painting them as baby killers. Islamophobes paint our beloved Prophet SAW as a pedophile in their effort to criminalize Islam. Islamophobes have an agenda, a mission, to paint Islam as evil. One way is to focus on the treatment of women. Not all of the accusations are unfounded. The fact that actual men have seldom followed the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah in regard to the treatment of women does not imply that Islam is misogynistic. Far from it. Islam gave women the right to contract and conduct business 1400 years before women gained that right in the West – in 1973. On the other hand, the errors and failures revealed by history are no excuse for our present behavior. As Muslims, living in the world we live in today, we cannot afford to be lackadaisical about our fiqh. You are an ambassador for Islam, as well as for your country and your family. Many unseen eyes are watching you!! They are judging every Muslim in the world by your behavior. If a fellow Muslim is killed because someone got a poor impression of Islam and Muslims from your behavior, you are partially to blame. Remember our fiqh is not just ibadaat (worship), it is also mu’amalaat (transactions). And if you are “non-practicing”, “secular” then fine, but make sure people know you are not a Muslim. Islam is not an ethnicity; it is a religion, a way of life. If you are not living it, then you are not a Muslim, you have a different identity. We have no right to judge Christianity by the behavior of “non-practicing” Christians or secular atheists, (although many of us do). Please be clear about your identity so people will not judge Muslims on the basis of your cultural or personal behavior. And, if your identity is as a Muslim, learn your deen and try your best to live it. Don’t just assume you know it because you grew up in a certain place or speak a certain language. It is amazing that people are so obsessed with family or tribal honor, but care little for the honor of those who share their nation or their deen. With this in mind, we must examine an issue made large by the Islamophobic movement: female genital mutilation. This practice, confined mostly to eight African states, has become a cause for condemning Islam as misogynistic and barbaric, even though many practitioners of female genital mutilation are not Muslim and many who perform it are women. Many Muslim leaders including leading shuyuk have condemned it and have declared many of the forms of this practice to be haram. However, in regard to one form of this practice, cutting and removal of the prepuce of the clitoris - so-called female circumcision, scholars, both ancient and modern, disagree. Just the fatawa issued by the scholars of Egypt and Al-Azhar University alone reveal the extent of this iktilaaf. In this paper, we will examine the various forms of female genital modification in light of the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the Maqaasid ash-Shariah.