The Queen Rules

Michael Dickinson

“The definition of relief, if you are Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is ringing up the Queen and saying, ‘Your Majesty, it is all right, your kingdom is still united’.”

– David Cameron

London.

As Election Day in the United Kingdom fast approaches with party leaders making last-minute promises to attract voters to put them in power, let’s not forget that whichever party wins, the elected Prime Minister must swear alliegance to the one who holds the REAL power in the country – the present monarch, Queen Elizabeth the Second.

The appointment of a Prime Minister is the prerogative of the Sovereign. Once he or she has been appointed, the Court Circular records that “the Prime Minister Kissed Hands on Appointment”. Let’s face it, the ‘ministering’ of British politicians is performed not for the people of the land but for the ruling monarch. HMG stands for Her Majesty’s Government, after all, and HMP means Her Majesty’s Prisons, where you might linger at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

‘Power’ is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events”. The Queen has plenty of that. And although she is the only member of the Royal Family who is not allowed to vote, under the historic ‘Royal Prerogative’ she has

* The power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister

* The power to appoint and dismiss other ministers.

* The power to summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament

* The power to declare war and make peace

* The power to command the armed forces of the United Kingdom

* The power to regulate the Civil Service

* The power to ratify treaties

* The power to issue and withdraw passports

* The power to appoint bishops and archbishops of the Church of England

* The power to create peers (both life peers and hereditary peers)

* The power to grant honours

Although she is a constitutional monarch who is supposed to remain politically neutral, both the Queen and the Prince of Wales do exercise their power to veto legislation that is proposed by Parliament. It was recently revealed that in 1999 she vetoed entirely a private member’s Bill, the Military Actions Against Iraq (Parliamentary Approval) Bill, that would have transferred the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to Parliament.

The strikes went ahead anyway, despite the protests of over a million demonstrators in the streets of London, probably approved after mutual agreement between the Queen (Commander in Chief of the Forces), and former Prime Minister Tony Blair at their weekly meetings at the time. Before that war ended, at least 550,000 Iraqis, including 120,000 civilians, died as a result.

The weekly audience given at Buckingham Palace by the Queen to the incumbent Prime Minister, where she has a right to express her views on Government matters, has been a regular event since she came to the throne in 1952. If not available to meet, they speak by phone. All communication between them is strictly confidential. No written record is made. The Royal Family is also exempt from requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The Queen has held audiences with twelve British Prime Ministers during her reign, beginning with elderly eccentric warmonger Winston Churchill at the age of 25, and latterly with old-Etonian toff David Cameron (a fifth cousin twice removed), at the age of 89.

Relationships have varied, but one or two Prime Ministers have commented on the meetings. Labour leader Jim Callaghan wrote: “Conversation flowed freely and could roam anywhere over a wide range of social as well as political and international topics.”

Conservative leader John Major said: “Nothing is barred. You can be totally indiscreet. If the corgies had been bugged the Russians would have known all our secrets.”

And PM David Cameron apologized profusely to the Queen after he was caught by cameramen with ultra sensitive microphones confiding to Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York, that when he rang the Queen to give her the news that Scotland had voted No to Independence: “She purred down the line.”

Although conversations between Queen and Prime Minister are confidential, you can be sure the topic of money is on her list. It’s an important subject between regents and ministers. In fact King George 11 made Sir Horace Walpole his first ‘prime’ minister as a reward for ‘screening his investments’ from the South Sea Bubble financial crisis which had ruined so many others. He gave Walpole the property of No. 10 Downing Street. Walpole didn’t use the new title, preferring the then customary title of First Lord of the Treasury.

The Queen won’t want to talk about the £13, 000,000 private income she earns from her estates of Balmoral and Sandringham, or the ‘Privy Purse’ (royal nickname for land and property in the Duchy of Lancaster, a huge chunk of land, from which she recieves all net profits and pays no Corporation tax.) That’s her own business.

And her personal investment portfolio, (estimated by royal financial observer, Professor Phillip Hall, at a total net worth of £400 million (only a guess), is protected by the 1976 Companies Act, which specifically excludes the Queen from having to disclose share holdings, as everyone else must.

What she wants to hear about is the ‘Sovereign Grant’ given by the Treasury to the monarch each year, (which has replaced the previous ‘Civil List’ with its yearly fixed £7.9 million handout). Now she is given 15% of profits from the massively profitable Crown Estate, which this year amounted to nearly £38,000,000.

The Crown is the second biggest landowner in Britain: 182,313 acres in England, 85,210 acres in Scotland, with large lucrative swathes of properties in London. Nice work if you can get it. How does she possess and retain such wealth and power? Well, it helps when you are one of those special people chosen by God.

If you examine any British coin you will see the letters ‘DG and FD’ around the inner rim of the ‘head’ side along with the Queen’s name. DG stands for ‘Dei Gratia’ (By the Grace of God), and FD means ‘Fidei defensatrix’ (Defender of the Faith).

‘By the Grace of God’ is historically considered to mean ruling by the ‘divine right of kings’, a doctrine which asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God.

Basing his theories on his understanding of the Bible, King James 1 wrote that a king “acknowledges himself ordained for his people, having received from the god a burden of government, whereof he must be countable.. The monarch is the absolute master of the lives and possessions of his subjects; his acts are not open to inquiry or dispute, and no misdeeds can ever justify resistance. The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself are called gods”.

“Almighty God, such blasphemies are uttered!” thunders rebel preacher John Ball in Robert Southey’s play ‘Wat Tyler’, addressing the revolting peasants about to storm London in 1381. “Almighty God, such blasphemies believed! Ye are all equal. Nature made ye so. Equality is your birthright!”

According to ‘divine right’, the monarch is not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm. Only God can judge an unjust king. Any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacreligious act. In fact, it is an officially treasonous act to “compass or imagine” the death of the Queen.

By the way, it was vain King Richard II, (he who triggered the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt by raising the poll tax), who first demanded that people address him as ‘Your Majesty’.   King James I was the one who came up with the idea of calling the islands he ruled ‘Britain’. He believed he was a descendant of an early king called ‘Brute’, whom he called ‘the most noble founder of the Britains’. The English weren’t so keen on the idea, but who can argue with a king?

Brutal suppression has always been the response. After an uprising in York, for example, William the Conqueror sent his army north with orders to kill every man, woman and child living there. Around 150,000 people died, and much of the north of England was depopulated for generations. Queen Elizabeth is the 40^th monarch in succession since the country was invaded and occupied by the brutal Norman ‘William the Bastard’ in 1066.

When German George 1(who spoke no English) came to the throne in 1714 he wasted no time introducing The Riot Act which gave his army the right to shoot-to-kill any group of over twelve people meeting for any purpose the King disagreed with. And the 1848 Treason Felony Act makes it a criminal offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate the abolition of the monarchy in print.

The Queen’s full title is “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”.

‘Defender of the Faith’-( DF on your English coin)- reflects the Sovereign’s position as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which makes her formally superior to the Archbishop of Canterbury. She’s Head of the Church, of the State,of the Army, and of the Police. By law, nobody has the power to arrest the Queen. She can do as she pleases and nobody can stop her.

Only Canada, New Zealand and the UK use the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ for the Queen. Others have dropped it due to religious diversity. Australia, for example, styles her: “…by the Grace of God, Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth”.

On the Queen’s last State visit to Australia a young man was arrested for dropping his trousers and running alongside her motorcade as she was visiting Brisbane, Queensland, with an Australian flag swinging from his butt. 22 year old anti-monarchist Liam Warriner was found guilty of ‘public nuisance’ and fined 750 dollars.

“The Queen does not get cute granny status,” said Liam. “She’s a very powerful woman. The Queen represents where people can be born into importance. I don’t think that any one family should have more importance than any other family on this planet. I do believe in a free and equal society and unfortunately we don’t have that and will never have that while we have this system, while we have this police state, while we have this monarchy. Any elitist, any self-important, self-propagating elitist, I will happily bare my buttocks to and tell them what I think of them,” he said.

During the Queen’s Australian visit, Royalty commentator Barry Everinham asked: “Why the British taxpayer, who is suffering at the moment, has to put up with the indignity of paying people to have nannies and butlers and footmen and God only knows what … what do they do get it for, for God’s sake – for opening fetes and cutting ribbons?”

“I don’t know, it seems to me that it’s certainly time Australia moved on and got rid of all this nonsense, but far be it for me to tell the Brits what to do.”

As Britain gears up for the elections one wonders if the UK could really be described as a democratic country? Democracy, after all, is based on the idea that we are all equal, a system that gives power to the individual and the people as a whole. Monarchy, especially with its secret powers and influences, is the antithesis of democracy. It’s a sham – and it’s time for it to go.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that before the Roman conquest, the old Saxon kingdom’s tribes elected their ruler. The crown was bestowed by the people choosing their leader according to his fitness. The historian Hallam wrote: ‘No free people would entrust their safety to blind chance and permit a uniform observance of hereditary succession to prevail against strong public expediency.’

And yet the elected Prime Minister of Great Britain will not officially be recognized as such until he or she has bowed or curtsied in obeisance and “Kissed Hands on Appointment” with the real, unelected, ruler of the country.

Screw the elections! The Queen Rules – OK?

Universities: Incubating Innovation in Africa

Mandla Makhanya

I am reminded of the important contribution of the African civilization through various epochs of human history, something that is not properly exposed in our mainstream literature. When I reflect on that rich heritage and emerging opportunities for an African Renaissance in the 21st century I feel proud to be an African. I am mindful of the fact that some of you may wonder how such optimism come from in the midst of recent tragic incidents on the continent of Africa.

Yes indeed, we have witnessed tragic incidents such as the kidnapping of girls by the Boko Haram in the northern region of Nigeria, we have seen the cold-blooded murder of 148 students at Garrisa University College in Kenya, the xenophobic attacks in South Africa, the civil war in Libya and the Central African Republic, and indeed we continue to receive heart-wrenching stories of African and Middle East refugees fleeing conflict zones and drowning in their hundreds in the Mediterranean Sea.

Indeed, Africa is vast and complex hence it is always unwise to essentialise this great continent whenever something happens in any region. But in the same vain economists, development experts and many investors have noted that Africa, the second largest continent in the world, is rising in the midst of the aforementioned challenges. Some of the important indicators that they highlight include:

1. Africa is, on average, one of the fastest growing regions in economic terms albeit from a low base.

2. Africa boasts demographic dividends that include a relatively young population that is increasingly more educated middle class.

3. Africa today holds the largest reserves of natural resources and arable land than anywhere else in the world.

4. The African continent is increasingly becoming a serious player in the space of innovation in science, engineering and arts.

It is for these reasons that both emerging global markets, especially BRICS countries, and old developed economies have been reaching out to invest in the African continent. Global corporate powerhouses such as Microsoft and Samsung are investing in the African continent on an unprecedented scale.

On the occasion of the adoption of South Africa’s democratic post-apartheid Constitution in 1996, the former President Thabo Mbeki captured the mood and the African moment with a profoundly perceptive depiction of the African continent when he proclaimed the shared suffering, African continent’s triumph over adversity and the spirit of perseverance and determined hope that prevailed against all odds.

Former President Thabo Mbeki said,

“I am an African.
I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.
The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the
Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear.
The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share.

The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair. This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned.

Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now!”

It is with this consciousness and spirit that the University of South Africa Unisa), our government, all higher education institutions in the country as well as organized business and civil society at large strongly condemned the xenophobic attacks by a few criminal elements in a society that is otherwise generally welcoming of its foreign nationals.

We are of the strong view that South Africa is a nation premised on the practice of Ubuntu/botho and good neighbourliness with one another as citizens, with the whole of Africa as our fellow brothers and sisters and the world at large as members of the same human race.

In our condemnation of acts of violence against fellow Africans I said it behoves on all of us to remember the hospitality and shelter afforded by African countries to South African freedom fighters of yesteryear when we sought refuge in flight from the oppressive regime of the time. We are reminded of the fact that we are beneficiaries of international solidarity in our struggle against apartheid and that will always be the memory of our gratitude etched in our hearts.

It cannot, and it must not be, that when it is our turn to give shelter to our brothers and sisters, we instead worsen their lot with such despicable acts of intolerance, inhumanity and violence. What we are doing as a people is a betrayal of what our founding father, the late President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, and his generation stood for. Needless to say, our government is hard at work to stamp out these acts of criminality and to assist fellow Africans to restore their lives in the spirit of Ubuntu.

Let me now return to one of the primary reasons why today it feels good to be an African. Africa has become a good news story. Analysts have noted that a new wave of optimism is sweeping across the continent and that this has to do with the continent’s good economic performance. Africa’s growth has accelerated by an average of 5.7% since 2000, making it one of the fastest growing regions in the world, and increasingly an attractive investment destination.

Notable in this context is the significant economic growth and huge international investments in developments in South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria and Angola in recent years. With the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and China among the biggest investors in Africa.

Although these levels of growth are not uniform across all of Africa’s subregions, “at the current rate domestic gross domestic product (GDP) will reach 2.6 trillion US dollars by 2020” This is set to be underpinned by a youthful population that is rapidly urbanising and increasingly educated according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

It is the “increasingly educated population” that the McKinsey Report refers to that warrants further scrutiny. It is an accepted fact that Africa is endowed with abundant natural resources – from precious metals and minerals to crude oil -- hence the significant international investments that I have referred to earlier. But the bulk of these centres around African economies that are still heavily reliant on exports of primary resources. Furthermore, this abundance of natural resources has not lifted its population out of poverty.

And herein sits one of our biggest challenges. One that we can tackle with a song of innovation in our hearts in our quest to rejuvenate Africa, or a challenge that can leave us with a debilitating sense of paralysis. Fact is that most African countries feature very low on the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which measures life expectancy, education and GDP. Of the world’s 43 least-developed countries in terms of education 33 are African.

From all the analyses across the world, particularly in studies on development in Asian countries, it has been conclusively proven that education forms a critical pillar of sustainable human development. Africa is no exception.

Manuel Castells, the world renowned Spanish sociologist, described universities “as the engines of development.” In a lecture on Higher Education in 2009 at the University of the Western Cape he said:

“In the current condition of the global knowledge economy, knowledge production and technological innovation become the most important productive forces. So, without at least some level of national research system, which is comprised of universities, the private sector, public research centers and external funding, no country, even the smallest country, can really participate in the global knowledge economy.”

The University of South Africa, like all universities in Africa, squarely endorses the “engine of development role.” The size and scope of Unisa in the South African higher education landscape and its unique position in terms of open distance learning locates the university in a special position to not only influence the evolution and realization of development in South Africa, but across the entire continent.

Given the fact that the resources of all African states to provide in the growing need for higher education are severely challenged and the corporate sector’s ability to transcend its profit-seeking motives is equally constrained, with few exceptions off course, institutions such as Unisa plays a vital strategic role as catalysts for such development. The key here is being agile and responsive to the needs and requirements of a developing Africa. Moreover, as pointed out by scores of scholars in the past, it requires strategic cross-border and global partnerships for development.

A call for responsive African universities is captured in the following observation by Olukoshi and Zeleza in their book African Universities in the twenty-first century when they say:

In the face of a rapidly globalising and technologically intensive world, traditional disciplinary boundaries are crumbling and new interdisciplinary configurations and research agendas are developing that require new organizational forms of knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption. Similarly, new local-level and transnational alliances in the higher education sector are emerging, designed to take advantage of openings offered by processes of globalization and to force reconstruction of the basic principles that underpin the entire higher education system.

It is in this spirit and conviction that the University of South Africa has purposefully pursued new opportunities for innovation in teaching and learning for human development to give concrete and practical expression to our vision statement of shaping futures in the service of humanity.

One such “opening offered by the processes of globalization” is President Barack Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative offered via the Regional Leadership Centre Southern Africa (hosted at UNISA) to develop African young leaders in Business and Entrepreneurship Development, Civic Leadership; and Governance and Public Management through a hybrid of innovative and complimentary placements and experiential learning.

Another initiative is the creation of the Pan African Virtual University under the auspices of the African Union Commission to support the realization of Africa’s Agenda 2063. The University of South Africa is a seminal partner in this innovative platform to address the ever increasing need for higher education on the African continent. My university entered into a historic and unprecedented partnership when it signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the African Union Commission on 13 October 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Let me briefly deal with each of them in turn:

The Young African Leadership Initiative

As you probably know, President Obama appointed the University of South Africa to host one of the five Regional Leadership Centres in Africa to drive his Young African Leaders Initiative on the basis of its continental leadership in Open Distance Learning, the state of the art facilities at its business school, as well as its extensive involvement in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The Regional Leadership Centre (South Africa) has aligned itself with the core principles of President Obama’s YALI objectives that seek to:

• Invest in the new generation of young African leaders who will shape Africa’s future
• Respond to the strong demand by young African leaders for practical skills that can help them take their work to the next level in the fields of public service and business
• Deepen partnerships and connections between Africa and the United States
• Build a prestigious network of young African leaders who are at the forefront of change and innovation in their respective sectors.

The overarching objective of the Regional Leadership Centre (South Africa) is to provide the platform and tools for empower dynamic young Africans and to awaken their innate leadership potential to the benefit of Africa and its global partners.

In collaboration with the University of Pretoria, the Innovation Hub and private commercial partners the Regional Leadership Centre from its hub at the Unisa Business Leadership School, will develop 21st Century skills that are indispensable for participation and achievement in the global knowledge economy, by developing critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, entrepreneurial thinking, communication and multicultural collaboration with a focus on contemporary African issues.

Due to the multi-country nature of the programme, technology will be an integral part of the training and it will also be employed to allow different experts and the youth to collaborate via virtual platforms.

The modules of all the programmes are developed and made available as open educational resources and a Computer Mediated Professional Development approach is utilized as a means of keeping participants and academics engaged during the training in residence and even after the residence period when participants return to their homes across Southern Africa. That this programme was developed and has honoured our founding president and the global icon, Nelson Mandela, is a fitting tribute as he had passion for education and young people. The following statement is reflective of his commitment as he proclaimed that,

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.” (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1995).

The Regional Leadership Centre Southern Africa (hosted at UNISA) will thus develop African young leaders in Business and Entrepreneurship Development, Civic Leadership; and Governance and Public Management through a hybrid of innovative and complimentary placements and experiential learning. I also liken this programme to the Peace Corps that the former president of the USA, John Kennedy, developed in the early 1960s and it spread goodwill across the world utilizing cultural diplomacy of building ties amongst the people of the world.

The Pan-African Virtual University

Over the last few months the University of South Africa and key partners in African higher education have been working purposefully to create the Pan African Virtual University with the mandate of significantly increasing access to quality higher education and training through the innovative use of information communication technologies.

The other key partners are:

• The African Council for Distance Education (ACDE), a continental educational organization comprising African universities and other higher education institutions, that are committed to expanding access to quality education and training through open and distance learning;

• The Association of African Universities (AAU): who represents the voice of higher education in Africa on regional and international bodies and supports networking by universities in teaching, research and information exchange and dissemination.

• The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) who aims to be the engine for driving scientific and technological development in Africa; and

• Open Resources Africa: who plays a leading role in supporting higher education institutions across Africa in the development and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to enhance teaching and learning.

The Pan-African Virtual University will be a dedicated Pan-African University operating through open distance and e-learning (ODeL) for the benefit of the African continent. It will provide access to a geographically remote and dispersed student population and to those who have been marginalised from Higher Education opportunities.

As such it will use the full spectrum of instruments available to present and deliver course material – including multimedia (audio and visual); ICT (Online and offline eLearning), as well as Blended learning (a combination of print, technology and face to face interaction in the learning situation).

The Pan African Virtual University will naturally focus on high impact programmes to support Agenda 2063 and will deliver and certify full qualifications and Short Courses.

Africa has more than 800 universities and around 1500 institutions of higher learning, with the percentage of private universities sharply increasing in recent years. And with an estimated population of around one billion people, of which the youth constitutes 60% of the unemployed, it is not rocket science to realize that innovative and pioneering partnerships such as the two that I have mentioned, facilitated by technological advances of the digital age are bound to become the bedrock of development in Africa and elsewhere in the world. Open Distance Learning is thus poised to become not only a key driver, but an accelerator of development of the human resource capacity of Africa going forward.

I guess the challenge for all higher education institutions, particularly in Africa, is our agility and ability to “take advantage of openings offered by processes of globalization and to force reconstruction of the basic principles that underpin the entire higher education system.”

At the heart of all this is cracking the paradox that afflicts many universities, that of tenaciously clinging to the conventional ways of doing things or preserving the status quo when they are assumed to be centres of innovation and theatres of experimentation of new solutions.

These habitual tendencies are best apprehended by Samuel Johnson’s simple and yet profound statement “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” Until there is a radical rapture of the chains of using the same methods in resolving new problems there will be little prospect for innovative solutions and a new deal for our students.

The challenge of our time is that the world is globalized and more integrated through communication and transport technologies but our efforts for advancement of humanity, of social justice and inclusive development is needed now more than ever before. Open and Distance Learning model present a range of opportunities in this regard and the University of South Africa, working with partner institutions like you, stands ready to deliver on these goals.

New Perspectives for Russia-Nigerian Relations

Kester Kenn Klomegah


Nigerian diplomatic representatives, African researchers, non-governmental organizations, both local and foreign media and participants attended a one-day round-table discussions under the theme “Perspectives of the Russian-Nigerian relations in the light of the results of the Nigerian presidential election” that was held on April 29 in the conference hall of the Institute for African Studies in Moscow. 
 
The event was organized jointly by the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Nigerian Diaspora Organization (NIDO Russia). Participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with the current socio-economic environment, post-election developments, as well as business/investment opportunities for Russian investors in Nigeria.
 
NIDO-Russia was established as a forum for Nigerian professionals residing in Russia to participate in the development of Nigeria. It serves as a platform for Nigerians to network on the diaspora. NIDO-Russia is committed to tapping into the knowledge and skills of Nigerians and Russians in both countries needed for national development.
 
The speakers included Profesor Dmitri Bondarenko, Deputy Director at the Institute of African Studies (IAS), Professor Tatiana Denisova, Head of the Tropical Section of the IAS, Mr Evgeny Korendyasov, Head of the Russia-African Relations Section at the IAS, Valeriy Vozdvizhenskiy, Executive Director of the Russia-Nigeria Business Council, Dr Maurice Okoli, Researcher at the IAS, Mr Rex Essenowo, Chairman of NIDO Russia, Dr Bashir Obasekola,  and representatives from the Embassy of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
 
At the end of the heated debates and detailed discussions, the speakers and participants have agreed that the economic relations between Russia and Federal Republic of Nigeria will experience a significant positive development in the coming years, especially even before the presidential election many Russian companies, industrialists as well as private investors have shown keen interest in the economy of Nigeria.
 
The Nigerian election was the most competitive presidential race ever held in its political history and the country represents one of the largest democracies in the world. Now, if power is handed over peacefully as planned at the end of May, it will be a major shift for the country — the first political power transfer between civilians of different parties in a country that has spent much of its post-colonial history shaken by military coups.
 
With results from all of the Nigeria’s 36 federal states counted, the former military ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, delivered a crushing defeat to President Goodluck Jonathan, getting nearly 55 percent of the vote to Mr. Jonathan’s 45 percent. Jonathan represented the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) while Buhari stood on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC).
 
With this new political and post-election background, the participants at the round-table discussion praised the country for its democratic development, noting significantly that “the current situation will consolidate the climate for both local and foreign investment in the country.”
 
Additionally, this could open another chapter to a great deal of opportunities and business prospects, and for developing a broader multifaceted relationship in political, economic, education and socio-cultural spheres between Russia and Nigeria. They, however, noted with much doubts that there will be definitely emerging challenges and problems to overcome in the process. 
 
Russia has considered Nigeria to be a strategic partner in Africa because of its numerous opportunities in human and natural resources. Russia has long decided to build a stronger bilateral trade with Nigeria as the biggest investment destination in sub-Sahara Africa. Despite its more than 50-year business relationship dating from the Soviet era, trade volume has now remained low with a current figure of $300m between Russian Federation and Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Terror: Why KDF Should Not Pull Out of Somalia

Okwaro Oscar Plato

Since the entry of Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) in Somalia in 2011, security has been Jubilee government’s main challenge as Al-Shabaab terror group continues to rock Kenyan citizens in their backyards. And with the recent massacre in Garissa University where more than 146 students perished to Al-Shabaab, Kenyans have expressed divergent opinions on the decision president Uhuru should take.

Some experts have strongly opposed the presence of KDF in Somalia requesting the government to withdraw from Somalia so that Al-Shabaab can have a soft stand on Kenyans. Similarly, others have proposed that the Jubilee government should send more forces in Somalia.

Kenya has spent considerable amount of time and money to the tune of billions in trying to tame Al-Shabaab. There has been stable progress but not without ups and downs. The KDF short coming should not be used as a panacea to refute the progress our military has made.  Recalling our military means Kenya has lost the battle.

Terrorists killed Kenyans long before we ventured into Somalia. We were bombed in 1998 and 2002 despite the fact that Somalia refugees were seeking asylum in Kenya making their extremism more of war without a course not related to a territorial dispute, political ideology or historical injustice but aimed at achieving unknown good.

Similarly, I read distorted and grossly exaggerated stories from major news organizations about the "failures" in the war in Somalia. "The most trusted name in news" and a long list of others continue to misrepresent the scale of events in Somalia. Print and video journalists are covering only a fraction of the events and, more often than not, what they cover is only negative.

Relying on distorted reportage has influenced our pundits to express their unqualified opinion that besides withdrawing our soldiers in Somalia, Garissa University should also be closed down completely and turned into a military barrack.

Such an opinion forgets that Garissa, just like any other county, required development and closing the academic institution means endangering upcoming intellectuals in the region. Closure of the University will make Al-Shabaab celebrate for sparking fear into the government.
Those who have read the ancient Chinese military theorist and army General Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ will recall the philosophy of "Kill one, scare ten thousand" as the basic theory behind the strategy of terrorism. Through fear, the terrorist can then manipulate the behaviour of the masses.

Kenya has military barracks in the North Eastern and creating more does not mean we will effectively combat terrorists. It is our military response that has been lackadaisical when the enemy strikes despite their excellent job in Somalia. For example, during the Westgate Mall terror attack, KDF spent twelve hours with terrorists. Kenyans witnessed a repeat in Garissa massacre where the forces spent nine hours with the enemy surrounding the University without counter- insurgency. That gave Al-Shabaab time to do more killings by use of machetes.

Therefore, one question those “experts” pressurizing president Uhuru to remove our army in Somalia should ask is, how comes its Kenya bearing the brunt yet the operation is under AMISOM (Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya) are involved. That means those countries have secured their borders. Ethiopia boarders Somalia but we rarely hear of Al-Shabaab there.

Also bothersome are references by "experts" on how "long" this war is taking. I have read that in the world of manufacturing, you can have only two of the following three qualities when developing a product — ‘cheap,’ ‘fast,’ or ‘good.’ One can produce something cheap and fast, but it won't be good; good and fast, but it won't be cheap; good and cheap, but it won't be fast.

In this case, Kenyans want the result to be good and we want it at the lowest cost in human lives. Given this set of conditions, one can expect this war is to take a while, and rightfully so. Creating a democracy in Somalia not only will require a change in the political system, but the economic system as well.

Examples of studies of similar socio-economic changes that took place in countries like Bulgaria, Chile, Serbia, Russia and other countries with oppressive Socialist dictatorships shows that it took seven to ten years to move those countries to where they are now. There are many lessons to be learned from these transformations, the most important being that change doesn't come easily, even without an insurgency going on.

Maybe the experts should take a look at all of the work that has gone into stabilizing Bosnia-Herzegovina over the last 12 years. KDF is just at the 70-month mark in Somalia, a place far more oppressive than Bosnia ever was. If previous examples are any comparison, there will be no quick solutions, but that should be no surprise to an analyst who has done his homework.

The self-proclaimed "experts" on whom we rely for complete and factual accounts have little experience in counter-insurgency operations to support their assessments. How would they really know if things are going well or not? War is an ugly thing with many unexpected twists and turns. None of them is qualified to say “Operation Linda Inchi” is a lost cause at this point. What would they have said in early 1942 about US chances of winning World War II? Was it a lost cause too? How much have these "experts" studied warfare and counter-insurgencies in particular? Have they ever read Roger Trinquier's treatise Modern Warfare: A French View on Counter-insurgency (1956)? He is one of the few French military guys who got it right.

The Algerian insurgency of 1950s and the Somalia insurgency have many similarities. What about Napoleon's campaigns in Sardinia in 1805-07? Again, there are a lot of similarities to Somalia War. Have they studied that and contrasted the strategies? Or, have they even read Mao Zedung's theories on insurgencies, or Nygen Giap's, or maybe Che' Gueverra's? Have they seen any of Sun Tzu's work lately? If an analyst doesn't recognize the names on this list, he or she probably isn't qualified to assess the state of “Operation Linda nchi.”

Why would media seek opinion from someone who probably knows even less than they do about the state of matters in Somalia? It sells commercials, I suppose. But, I find it amazing that some people are more apt to listen to a movie star's or rock singer's view on how KDF should prosecute Somalia War than to someone whose profession it is to know how these things should go.

It seems that anyone who has a dissenting view is first to get in front of the camera. I support the freedom of expression, but let's talk of things we understand. Otherwise, television news soon could have about as much credibility as "The Bachelor" has for showing us truly loving couples.

“Breaking News, Al-Shabaab Massacre 146 in Garissa University” is what TV  highlights but the same media ignore to update our citizenry of the same when KDF drones strike Al-Shabaab camps in Baidoa.

Ironically, the press freedom that has been brought in the world is providing support for the enemy we fight. This media serves as the glass through which a relatively small event can be magnified to international proportions, and the enemy is exploiting this with incredible ease.

Such imbalanced reportage from both local and international press makes Kenyans think KDF venture in Somalia is a lost War thus President Uhuru should recall our soldiers. These images and stories, out of scale and context to the greater good going on, are just the sort of thing the terrorists are looking for. This focus on the enemy's successes without a counter continually serve as propaganda victories for Al-Shabaab thus strengthens his resolve and abets the cause. It's the Kenyan image that suffers in the end.

In its zeal to get to the hot spots and report the latest bombing, the media is missing the reality of a greater good going on in Somalia. KDF seldom is seen doing anything positive in the news. The good is ignored and replaced with the bad. However, I am confident that history will prove Kenya’s cause right, but by the time that happens, the world might be so steeped in the gloom of ignorance that people won’t recognize victory when it comes.

The Need to Lead: Filling the Skill Gap in Africa

Martin C. Pike

May 5th 2015, Johannesburg, South Africa - 2015 is a crucial year for Africa’s economic development. Summits in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Paris and New York will facilitate international cooperation, with Africa and its partners playing critical roles in shaping the continent's economic future. In September, at the United Nations General Assembly, global leaders are presumed to sanction Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Africa is at the forefront of these modifications and has been pivotal in shaping the new SDGs.

Moreover, this year’s financial projections are even higher than the 2000 forecasts. According to the African Progress Panel, African economies grew steadily by 6% in 2013, rivalling East Asia. This growth is fuelled by Africa's natural resources, dynamic services sector, increasing investments, expansion of exports, and improved agricultural production.

However, Africa's nascent economic growth has not generated enough well-paid occupations. UNDP states that over the past decade, Africa’s labour force grew by 91 million, but only 37 million of these people participated in jobs in wage-paying sectors. This year’s agenda is to take advantage of this steady economic growth and focus on structural transformations that lead to jobs which are more productive than informal agriculture. According to the World Bank, Africa's recent growth is heavily powered by the development of a vibrant services sector, mostly in telecommunications, retail, transportation and tourism, which provided 62% of Africa’s cumulative GDP growth between 1995 and 2011.

This shift has stimulated demand for a new kind of expertise. Companies in the information, communications and technology sector – such as Google, Microsoft, and Huawei – have already begun to implement educational programs. Naturally, the need to fill leadership positions within these advancing industries is also vital, and is a focal point in creating sustainable corporations throughout the continent.

Ghana, once seen as an example of economic stability in the region, has again sought financial aid from IMF to strengthen its currency. Although Ghana is a major exporter of gold, oil and cocoa, the country has experienced problems with budget deficits over the years, which it hopes to abate by taking these measures. According to Raze Khan of Standard Chartered Bank, “An IMF program is likely to give investors that additional level of confidence that fiscal consolidation might be pursued more seriously.” New Patriotic Party spokesman Mark Asibey-Yeboah agreed that this is a step in the right direction.

Looking east to Rwanda, economic growth is projected to increase from 4.6% in 2013 to 7.4% in 2015 due to recovery in the services sector, agricultural development and public investment programs. Programs such as the National Employment Program and investments in improving agricultural productivity are expected to increase employment and bolster growth in the medium term.

Economic growth in South Africa reached 1.9% in 2013, compared to 2.5% throughout 2012. However, projections based on the successful implementation of projects such as the Medupi Power Station suggest that South Africa's growth may in fact increase over the next year. South Africa has proven to be a thriving assembly hub for the automotive industry, and has also found some success in becoming a global automotive product supplier. The Automotive Production Development Plan began in January 2013, and is designed to generate new investments in the industry. Moreover, South Africa’s retail sector and financial services industry are the most developed on the entire continent, and both have a dynamic regional presence.

In recent years, many North African countries have experienced political and economic instability, but the 2015 economic outlook for North Africa is slightly more encouraging than in 2013-14, when the region's economy grew only 3% per year. According to the World Bank’s MENA Economic Monitor, economic growth in North Africa is projected to increase by 5.2% on average throughout 2015, strengthened by increased domestic consumption, the calming of political tensions, a rush of new investments in Egypt and Tunisia, and the complete restoration of oil production in Libya.

Fanatic Islamism in the Arab World

GARY LEUPP

A beautiful essay posted on Medium.com, entitled “A Marine in Syria: Silhouettes of Beauty and Coexistence before the Devastation” by Brad Huff, draws our attention to what for the warmongers in Washington is a highly inconvenient truth: the secular dictatorships in the Middle East the U.S. has sought to destroy since 9/11 (including most recently that of Libya) have been far more tolerant towards religious and cultural diversity than the regimes that have replaced them.

In particular, the much-vilified Baath Party, which governed Iraq during the Saddam years and continues to govern Syria, was and is based upon the principle of secularism (non-religious, relatively religiously tolerant) rule.

Huff, who “served” (as they say) as a Marine in Iraq between 2000 and 2004, first visited Syria in 2004 in order to study Arabic. He describes his surprise at how the experience challenged the “false assumptions” about the Arab world acquired during his “Texas Baptist childhood.” Describing Damascus in 2004 under Bashar Assad’s Baathist rule he writes:

“What I actually encountered were mostly unveiled women wearing European fashions and sporting bright makeup — many of them wearing blue jeans and tight fitting clothes that would be commonplace in American shopping malls on a summer day. I saw groups of teenage boys and girls mingling in trendy cafes late into the night, displaying expensive cell phones. There were plenty of mosques, but almost every neighborhood had a large church or two with crosses figured prominently in the Damascus skyline. As I walked near the walled “old city” section, I was surprised to find entire streets lined with large stone and marble churches. At night, all of the crosses atop these churches were lit up — outlined with blue fluorescent lighting, visible for miles; and in some parts of the Damascus skyline these blue crosses even outnumbered the green-lit minarets of mosques.

“Just as unexpected as the presence of prominent brightly lit churches, were the number of restaurant bars and alcohol kiosks clustered around the many city squares. One could get two varieties of Syrian-made beer, or a few international selections like Heineken or Amstel, with relative ease. The older central neighborhoods, as well as the more upscale modern suburbs had a common theme: endless numbers of restaurants filled with carefree Syrians, partying late into the night with poker cards, boisterous discussion, alcohol, hookah smoke, and elaborate oriental pastries and desserts. I got to know local Syrians while frequenting random restaurants during my first few weeks in Damascus. I came into contact with people representative of Syria’s ethnically and religiously diverse urban centers: Christians, Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Druze, Kurds, Armenians, Palestinians, and even a few self-declared Arab atheists. The characterization of Syrian city life that increasingly came to my mind during my first, and many subsequent visits and extended stays, was of Syria a consciously secular society when compared to other countries in the region.”

Much of this description might have applied to Baghdad as well, before the ruinous U.S. invasion of 2003 based on lies and the subsequent occupation. The latter forcibly disbanded the Baath Party of Iraq. It destroyed the regime that had appointed a Christian (Tariq Aziz) as Foreign Minister and Deputy Vice President; refurbished the Baghdad synagogue; authorized liquor shops and bars; endorsed female education through the graduate level; supported the Iraq National Symphony Orchestra and promoted rock ‘n roll radio stations. During the years of Baath rule in Iraq (1963-2003) mixed marriages between Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians and others became common; mixed neighborhoods were the norm; and the regime’s often brutal repressive actions were largely directed towards activists opposed to secularism and favoring some form of Islamic rule.

Nowadays of course, anyone paying attention knows that the worst sort of Shiite fanatics control one part of Iraq, ethnically cleansing neighborhoods, driving out Christians and intellectuals, imposing a dress code, shutting down liquor and video stores, discouraging women from attending college. Meanwhile the worst sort of Sunni fanatics control Anbar province and adjoining areas to the north, beheading and crucifying, enslaving and forcing conversions.

Is it not apparent what even many anti-Baathists are now saying matter-of-factly: Things were better under Saddam Hussein?

There is no doubt that the Shiite majority population under the old regime were oppressed in many ways. The Baathists sometimes banned the Shiites’ traditional annual Karbala pilgrimage march, thinking it might produce violent demonstrations against the regime. Saddam was (perhaps) responsible for the murder of Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed Sadden al-Sadr, revered father of the currently powerful Muqtada al-Sadr, in 1999. (But for what it’s worth, Saddam condemned the murder and vowed to hunt down the perpetrators, while calling for Sunni-Shiite unity).

In the wake of the U.S. destruction of the Baath Party, the secular Iraqi national army, and the modern state itself, self-defined representatives of the Shiite majority assumed power with U.S. support while a broad section of the Sunni Arab minority (Kurdish Sunnis being a separate matter) found themselves suddenly unemployed, without income, denied any significant role in the new order. The Sunnis had held a privileged position in Iraqi society since the early 1920s when British colonialists had decided to impose a Sunni king (of the Saudi Hashemite line) on the arbitrary chunk of real estate they’d carved out of the defeated Ottoman Empire that they decided to call Iraq. (Meanwhile the French created Syria, for a time privileging the Alawite minority in their colony, which helps to explain the power structure in that country today.)

To get a sense of the brutality of the British conquest of Iraq, achieved through the suppression of the Iraqi Revolt (or Great Iraqi Revolution) of 1920, it is enough to note that between 6,000 and 10,000 Iraqis were killed and the British seriously considered using mustard gas to suppress resistance. Winston Churchill positively advocated it at the time.

From 1921 to 1958, the British-installed monarchy of foreign origin beholden to Anglo-American imperialism ruled over Iraq, meeting with consistent opposition from the Shiites and Kurds who represent well over 60% of the population. In 1958 a group of nationalist military officers led by Abd al-Karim Qasim seized power. Qasim’s regime angered Washington and London by withdrawing from the Baghdad Pact (an anti-communist military alliance of the U.K., Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan supported by the U.S.); embracing Egypt’s pan-Arabist president Nasser; establishing cordial ties with the USSR; legalizing the Communist Party of Iraq (which became the largest communist party in the Middle East) and demanding a 55% share in the profits of the Anglo-American owned Iraq Petroleum Company.

In 1959, the U.S. sought to engineer Qasim’s downfall, employing among others the young Saddam Hussein (then 22), who following a failed CIA-backed plot to assassinate Qasim fled to Cairo. There he remained in touch with his CIA patrons until the successful Baathist coup in 1963. Thereafter Saddam was in charge of the roundup and execution of Iraqi communists, gradually inching his way towards the presidency of the country in 1979.

The U.S. supported the Baathist Party at that time, as the only viable alternative to the Communists or the Islamists. Yes, it maintained the friendly relationship with the Soviet Union, and yes, it emphatically opposed the Israeli settler-state. But the relationship with the Baathists was useful to Washington—no more so than when, following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, Iraq invaded its neighbor in an effort to produce the regime change that the U.S. so deeply craved. Who having seen them can forget those photos of Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 1983, smiling and shaking hands with Saddam as they discussed U.S. military aid including the provision of chemical weapons?

The U.S. had, at the behest of Israel, placed Iraq on its black list of “terror-sponsoring nations” but the Reagan administration removed it in 1982 to allow for greater trade and military support. When Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, the U.S. uncharacteristically joined the entire UN in condemning the aggression.

Of course, meanwhile, even as it allied itself with the Iraqi Baathists against the Shiite Islamists of Iran, the U.S. nurtured its closest Arab ties with Saudi Arabia, homeland of Sunni Islamism. If by “Islamism” we mean political Islam fired by an insistence on applying Sharia law, Saudi Arabia is of course the most striking example. While fearing the rise of Islamism elsewhere (for reasons which are now quite apparent to many people) Washington wedded itself to the Saudi regime.

This is an absolute monarchy dedicated to a Salafi version of Islam that makes no pretensions to any kind of democratic aspirations. There is no freedom of speech, press, assembly, conscience. The Shiite minority (maybe 20%) is grudgingly tolerated as a community of second-class citizens. Religious indoctrination is the crux of education. There are no open Christians in Saudi Arabia and to convert means death. (The many Filipinos and other Christians in the country as temporary workers may worship privately in their homes, but not hold services. Last September police from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice raided the home of an Indian Christian in Khafji, arresting 38 attending a prayer meeting and confiscating their bibles.)

Saudi women have few rights other than those accorded by thousand-year-old laws; as is well known, they are forbidden to drive or venture out into society without the company of male relatives and most be covered head to toe on such occasions. People convicted of crimes are maimed, stoned to death or beheaded every year. In short, Saudi Arabia is almost everything the U.S. deplores in the Taliban or ISIL.

But the U.S. never undertakes to do what it might surely do at the drop of a hat: issue a devastating condemnation of the country as a human rights disaster far more egregious than anything seen in modern Iraq—or in Syria, which Obama seems determined to wreck just as his predecessor wrecked Baathist Iraq!

The reason for this is simple. Saudi Arabia with 16% of the world’s proved oil resources insures the supply of cheap oil to the west and Japan in return for U.S. military support. (Among the uses of U.S. supplied weaponry: the suppression of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations in Shiite-majority Bahrain against the absolute monarchy in 2013, to insure the Sunni king maintained control over the country that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the current Saudi attack on neighboring Yemen to crush the Shiite-led challenge to the U.S.-backed pro-Saudi, pro-U.S. dictatorship.)

It pays to spend some time studying the history of these places—something U.S. secretaries of state seem uniquely incapable of doing. (Why bother them with dead facts, after all, while they’re hell-bent on making history themselves?) But if we do make the effort we realize that the Baathist movement (which rose to power in Iraq and Syria and has been a presence in Jordan and Yemen) arose in the 1940s under the leadership of a Sorbonne-educated Syrian Christian named Michel Aflaq, who while deeply respectful of the historical role of Islam in the formation of Arab culture, opposed the union of the mosque and state and promoted religious pluralism. This is what Brad Huff witnessed in Damascus.

Aflaq partnered with a Syrian Sunni activist, son of a grain merchant, named Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and with Alawi Shiites associated with the philosopher and historian Zaki al-Arsuzi. Their Arab Baath Movement, which became the Arab Baath Party in 1947, was a Pan-Arabist, secular, modernizing movement—the opposite of fundamentalist Islam. Its achievements in Iraq include the fact that before the U.S. invasion Iraq boasted the best national education system in the Arab world, the highest number of PhDs, and the highest rate of female education. But the U.S. has crushed Baathism in Iraq. Now it is aiming at the Syrian variant, and in the process repeating its toxic achievement in Iraq.

That is to say, the U.S. by attacking precisely those secular forces that have most opposed the horrors of religious fanaticism—realizing, as they are best placed to do, its horrific potential—are actually working in tandem with the fanatics to inflict incomprehensible suffering.

What if a series of U.S. administrations (influenced to say the least by Israel and its powerful Lobby) hadn’t come to view Baathism as a greater enemy than Islamic fanaticism? What if the U.S. occupiers of Iraq had allowed the party to compete in elections and represent its traditional constituents? What if, instead of declaring Assad’s regime “illegitimate” (as though Obama can be any judge of such things) Washington had stayed out of the Syrian conflict since 2011 altogether?

“What if” history is a tricky business. We can’t turn back the hand of time and experimentally do things over again. Still, I think it difficult to imagine ISIL in its lightning rise to power over much of the Middle East, frying people alive in cages, crucifying, beheading, burying alive and enslaving, hacking to bits 3000-year-old artworks and world heritage monuments, if George W. Bush and his team hadn’t responded to 9/11 with an all-out assault on the most modernizing, secular forces in the Arab world, in alliance with some of the most backward.

If the groups of teenage boys and girls Huff once saw in Damascus “mingling in trendy cafes late into the night,” wind up crucified, beheaded, buried alive or merely blown to bits—or even just consigned to lives of unparalleled oppression—we should know who to thank. If the ISIL or al-Nusra thugs smash the treasures of the National Museum and Historical Museum in Damascus, or blow up the glorious ruins of Palmyra, we should know where to point the finger. Barbaric though such actions may be, they pale before the horrific crime of the U.S. invasion of this region twelve years ago. It opened Pandora’s Box, which has unleashed nothing but death and evil ever since.

The U.S. Government’s Record on Human Rights

Matt Peppe

On Friday, Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby declared that six police officers will face criminal charges including second degree heart murder, manslaughter, assault and false imprisonment for their role in the arrest and homicide of 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray. While this is welcome and encouraging news for those seeking justice for Gray and his family, past experience demonstrates the odds the accused criminals will be convicted are miniscule. Regardless, it is not enough to treat the Freddie Gray incident as merely a violation of domestic law. The actions by agents of the State are part of a pattern of human rights abuses that are rampant against the domestic population, especially ethnic and racial minorities. The crimes are not only attributable to the indicted Baltimore officers but to the government they represent, which has failed to deliver the human rights obligations owed to all American citizens.

After the arrests of the six officers, residents continued their protests in a clear indication that the outrage of the Baltimore uprising is about much more than the mistreatment and killing of Freddie Gray as an isolated incident. Interviewed on Fridayby the Baltimore Sun, Kevin Moore, who filmed the unlawful arrest of Gray on his cell phone, said that “We’re going to keep on marching for human rights. We’re going to keep on going until this stops — the police brutality.”

Across the country, grassroots movements that have gained momentum after the killings of unarmed African Americans including Michael Brown, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Brandon-Tate Brown, and Freddie Gray have focused on far-reaching political and economic demands. They must be understood as a critique of the entire socioeconomic system that oppresses minorities and manifests itself with excessive use of force by agents of the state against members of these same disenfranchised communities.

Critically, activists have stressed the connections between police brutality, structural economic inequalities, and the epidemic of mass incarceration that all target predominantly African Americans and Latinos. Economic policies relegate African Americans to an impoverished underclass. They are then attacked by the state through the criminal justice system precisely for their social status. The prison system is used to warehouse what is considered a surplus population that has no role in the modern economy. Law enforcement officers take on the role of enforcers of oppression.

As Michelle Alexander explains in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “The stark and sobering reality is that, for reasons largely unrelated to actual crime trends, the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history.”

Police brutality carried out by law enforcement enforcing a racist drug war is merely a symptom of the system of white supremacist-informed politics that produces the nation’s unequal social and economic structures. Eliminating the violence of the enforcers would do nothing to eliminate the violence of structural inequality that permeates American society.

Groups like #BlackLivesMatter recognize this and explicitly state their grievances with the systemic factors behind individual crimes against black people: “When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. How Black poverty and genocide is state violence. How 2.8 million Black people are locked in cages in this country is state violence. How Black women bearing the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families is state violence.”

We The Protesters write in an Open Letter that they seek to “build a community that is empowered to establish a new political and social reality that respects and affirms blackness and the humanity therein.”

When Freddie Gray was killed, agents of the state violated many of his human rights. as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Namely, he was deprived of his right to life and liberty (Article 3); he was subjected to torture and degrading treatment (Article 5); he was subjected to arbitrary arrest (Article 9); and he was subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy (Article 12).Possibly the only thing unique about Gray’s treatment at the hands of Baltimore police is the scale of the uprising it gave rise to among his community members. As a Baltimore Sun investigation revealed, city residents have had to pay out nearly $6 million in the last four years to settle more than 100 lawsuits alleging “that police officers brazenly beat up alleged suspects.” The victims ranged from young children to old women. Even City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young told the paper that “[residents] fear the police more than they fear the drug dealers on the corner.” And the situation in Baltimore is not unique to the rest of the United States.The United Nations Human Rights Committee declared in its most recent report they were “concerned about the still high number of fatal shootings by certain police forces … and reports of excessive force by certain law enforcement officers, including the deadly use of tasers, which has a disparate impact on African Americans.” The Committee also also expressed its concern about “racial disparities at different stages in the criminal justice system, as well as sentencing disparities and the over-representation of individuals belonging to racial and ethnic minorities in prisons and jails.”

If the United States had ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and was subject to review by the United Nations, the findings would be equally damning, or likely worse. How many Baltimore residents – or those of any major U.S. city – would feel that their government was delivering their right “to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions” (Article 11)? Or “a decent living for themselves and their families” (Article 7)? The right to “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” (Article 12)?

Last month, MintPress News reported that the city of Baltimore has issued notices to residential water customers with overdue accounts that their service will be shut-off. They note that United Nations experts “were among many who expressed concern that water shut-offs violate basic human rights.” Freddie Gray, like many residents of Baltimore, was exposed to lead paint in his childhood home. Lead paint exposure by children has been proven to result in potentially disastrous development problems.

The Washington Post writes that it is “hard to know whether Gray’s problems were exclusively borne of lead poisoning or were the result of other socioeconomic factors as well. From birth, his was a life of intractable poverty that would have been challenging to overcome.” The socioeconomic factors must be attributed directly to the state that created them and failed to remedy them for Gray and millions of others.

If protesters were polled about whether the government was fulfilling its human rights obligations to provide basic social and economic rights, is there any doubt that they would nearly unanimously disagree? Could city, state or federal officials even claim to enjoy the consent of the governed among African American communities that have been victimized for decades, if not centuries, of structural inequalities and aggressive policing meant to repress people through a cruel system of social control?

Many voices on the street are loudly calling for an indictment of the system as a whole. The difference between this American movement and other color revolutions overseas that receive much corporate media attention is that it is entirely homegrown and a product of grassroots reaction to oppression, rather than a manufactured product of foreign funding and training.

U.S. government officials have never hesitated to decry alleged human rights abuses by the regimes of official enemies. One year ago, Secretary of State John Kerry accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of carrying out a “terror campaign against his own people” who did not “respect human rights.” Kerry neglected to mention that half of the deaths resulting from the protests were of security agents and government supporters, some who were decapitated by barbed wire barricades erected by anti-socialist protesters.

The U.S. government has showered middle and upper-class Venezuelan students and pro-business interests with millions of dollars in funding and organizational training to provoke protests they could then condemn for political purposes. The same is true in Ukraine, Syria, Cuba, Hong Kong and across the world. What justification do they have to spend the nation’s resources to manufacture opposition abroad rather than address the demands of citizens at home opposed to the inequality and insecurity that the state subjects them to, and which they could drastically reduce or outright eliminate, through taxation of private wealth and redistribution, if they chose to?

Freddie Gray has become a martyr for the suffering he endured throughout his life at the hands of the social, economic, and political system he lived under, rather than just for his suffering at the hands of the six police officers who ended his life. The Baltimore uprising will not end with the verdicts against the six officers. It will only end when the people of Baltimore and cities across the U.S. are able to hold the people who design the policies that deprive them of their fundamental human rights accountable.