Africa World Now Project

**Note: this is a segment of a [4-hr] mini-radio documentary [titled: terrains of struggle: continuities in freedom dreams] we put together, September 2022 ... full program available via link in bio]** Land is an essential component of liberation. And “The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence which it exerts on the revolution of relationships between man and his environment, among men or groups of men within a society, as well as among different societies [Cabral, 1970].” An example of these essential components of resistance is found in the Kurdish freedom movement. According to Dilar Dirik in The Kurdish Women’s Movement: History, Theory and Practice, the Kurdish Freedom Movement, is a “multifront, popular, transborder and internationalist movement [that] ideologically and organizationally unites genocide survivors, guerrillas, prisoners, workers, politicians, refugees, intellectuals, artists, and youth, who organize through local and regional bottom-up assemblies, communes, cooperatives, academies, and congresses. Since one major component of this movement is its armed struggle against NATO member Turkey, its structures are largely criminalized as ‘terrorist’ by most Western countries. The most radical aspect of this meticulously organized movement is its self-understanding as a ‘women’s paradigm’. One core tenet that permeates its anti-capitalist and anti-state ideology is that patriarchy is a 5,000-year-old system that can and must be abolished, not through reform, but in a ‘women’s revolution’, and that the liberation of all of society is impossible otherwise. In the perspective of the movement, in a patriarchal world, women’s autonomous organization in all spheres of life, from knowledge production to armed self-defense, is a paradigmatic stance and precondition for true democracy” [xviii]. Mansur Tayfuri in The Last Barricade of Revolution: The Kurdish Resistance in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 writes, “A revolution, as a political event and a truth procedure, is not itself the truth, but it opens up a space towards the possibility of another world. Any revolution forces us to encounter what we never expected to emerge. That is why a revolution always functions as a shock” [2021]. What you will hear next is our segment, titled: Poetics of Revolution: Autonomy, Land, Visions of Freedom [exploring the long genealogy of the Kurdish Freedom movement – paying specific attention to the continuities of global struggle by examining the Kurdish Resistance in the Iranian Revolution of 1979] focusing on the relationship between culture, the meaning of autonomy, and the role of land! Enjoy!

Writing in ‘Beyond Nationalism, But Not Without it’, Ashanti Alston frames his thoughts in the following epigraph by Audre Lorde: “…we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.” Moving through Ashanti’s intentional and critical engagement with anarchism, he situates the sociopolitical worldview in an African context in his article, ‘Towards a Vibrant & Broad African-based Anarchism’, where he provides an important point of entry to expand the work that others such as Sam Mbah, I.E. Igariwey, and the Nigerian Awareness League have provided as the foundational premise of expanding dominant expressions of anarchism as a sociopolitical frame that can guide or more appropriately further radical and revolutionary thought. In fact, Ashanti highlights the fact that ideas and concepts that anarchism/ist wrestle with such as, but not limited to – communalism, nonbinary conceptualizations of gender and the role of the individual the community, to society, direct democracy – are fundamental and inherent in indigenous – endogenous – precolonial African sociopolitical and cultural fabric. ASHANTI OMOWALI ALSTON: Revolutionary, speaker, writer, organizer, political theorist. Ashanti is one of the few former members of the Black Panther Party who identifies as an anarchist in the tradition of New Afrikan ancestor Kwesi Balagoon (BPP & BLA) within the Black Liberation Movement. As a result of his membership in both the BPP and Black Liberation Army (BLA), he served a total of 14 years as a political prisoner and prisoner-of-war. He has visited the Zapatista movement, organized with Anarchist People Of Colour (APOC) and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and is currently on the Steering Committee of the National Jericho Movement to free U.S. political prisoners. Ashanti has authored a number of chapters, articles, pamphlets, and given talks and lectured around the world. Some of his work has appeared in Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism; Childhood & The Psychological Dimension of Revolution; Black Anarchism: A Reader; Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free U.S. Political Prisoners; Anarchist Panther; Journal of Prisoners on Prisons; and No! Against Adult Supremacy to name a few. Concepts and ideas that frame this present discussion are centered on: autonomy-the impact/influence of Black Power Movement on the Zapatists; the role of land as a fundamental component of liberation; visions of freedom; where are we now and where are we headed in terms of an organized collective front and, this, in relationship to the necessity to develop a program of action that can sufficiently counter the present conditions of global order? Using some of Ashanti’s work - Towards a Vibrant & Broad African-Based Anarchism; What’s a Black Man Doing Here In ZapatistaLand?: Journey Into the ‘Mississippi’ of Mexico; and Beyond Nationalism But Not Without It - we set the terms of engagement that will undoubtedly frame future conversation where we Think Black Out Loud in public space. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program!

According to Kamau Brathwaite, ‘Kumina is the most African of the [cultural expressions] to be found in Jamaica, with negligible European or Christian influence. Linguistics evidence cites the Kongo as a specific ethnic source for the ‘language’ and possibly the music of kumina. Recounting a personal experience with Imogene Kennedy, known as Queenie, who was a queen and tradition bearer of Kumina, James Early in his article, The ‘Re-communalization’ of a Jamaican Kumina Drum, highlights Queenie’s entrance into the world of the Kumina religion, as documented in Olive Lewin’s book, Rock It Come Over: The Folk Music of Jamaica, Queenie share that: “While searching for coconuts in a gully, the Spirits took her to a large, hollow cotton tree where she said she stayed twenty-one days without food or water, hanging upside down, communicating with the ancestral spirits who taught her prayers and songs in the Kikongo African language. From that epiphany she became a Kumina queen.” Today, we present to you, a conversation I had with Nyasha Laing about her film [Kumina Queen] contextualized in a wider discussion about Kumina. The film centers, Imogene “Queenie” Kennedy who was a contemporary priestess in post-colonial Jamaica who catapulted her African spiritual practice into renown. But after centuries of erasure, what remains of the dance between the living and the dead? Nyasha Laing is a documentarian, writer, cultural worker, and lawyer focused on transformative stories of global leaders, cultures, and communities. Her independent storytelling credits include Punta Soul (2008) and Kumina Queen (2022), two films that explore themes of loss, regeneration, and freedom. Her work has appeared in and on the Los Angeles Pan-African Film Festival, BBC World Service, YES Magazine, The Art Museum of the Americas, IMZ International Festival & European Traveling Showcase. In addition, she has served as an impact producer for award-winning PBS films including Tell Them We Are Rising (2017), All Kinfolk Ain’t Skinfolk (2018), Belly of the Beast (2020), and Into Dust (2021). Nyasha is a graduate of Yale University and New York University School of Law. In a statement from Nyasha Laing about the purpose of the film: “We tell this story to demystify and celebrate kumina.” Before the conversation … we will hear from Kamau Brathwaite presenting part of his poem, “Kumina” from Born to Slow Horses … that moves with the 21 days that Imogene Kennedy spent communicating with the ancestral spirits who taught her prayers and songs. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program! For more [about film & Nyasha Laing]: https://kuminaqueen.net/ Image: Nyasha Laing [film still] Sounds: Poet Kamau Brathwaite reads selections from the poem "Kumina" from Born to Slow Horses, winner of the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ate7II-Fv6Q&t=443s SIYAANS: KUMINA [A homage to the Spiritual Expressions of our Ancestors] by ShakaRa!, Spoken Word Activist, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MpbD9yFPLg&t=1s Paul Bogle Foundation, KUMINA @ STONY GUT OCTOBER 10TH 2014 available here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnL4OvkDUML5Febztd8kJQ/featured Start Running from Death To The Planet by The Comet Is Coming

As Professor Alkalimat provides a few opening thoughts to his recently published, The Future of Black Studies, he writes “The future we need is the opposite of dystopia. We need a positive future. To understand the struggles of Black people, and how Black people have been able to celebrate life even under harsh conditions, we have to seek and evaluate the positive influence of Black Studies. Specifically, Black Studies prepares a diagnosis of the present-past, while seeking a perspective and policies to improve the quality of life in the present-future. This is a recognition that the past and the future are intimately connected to the present—all the dynamics of a dialectical process” [4]. Professor Alkalimat goes on to write, “Black Studies is an educational context for such imagination, both about society and about Black Studies itself. People in Black Studies do not separate the two. The future of the academic discipline is inseparable from the future of society and the institutions of education that house Black Studies. This is what this volume seeks to explore: the future of Black Studies in the context of the future of society” [5]. Today, we explore the ideas, arguments, and concepts of the Future of Black Studies with Professor Abdul Alkalimat. Abdul Alkalimat is a founder of the field of Black Studies and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. A lifelong scholar-organizer with a PhD from the University of Chicago, he has lectured, taught, and directed academic programs across the U.S., the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and China. His academic-organizing trajectory stems, as former chair of the Chicago chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s to a prominent actor in the African Liberation Support Movement to being a co-founder of the Black Radical Congress in 1998. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program!

In a 2015 article titled, Decolonizing Our minds and Our Lands: Reviving Seeds, Culture and African Strength, Gathuru Mburu writes that: “Recolonization is happening. There is a second scramble, not just in Africa, but across the global South. Corporations started it. We need to name and shame these corporations - Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, and the program promoting them, AGRA [A Green Revolution for Africa] - to take this battle to the next level. The wars [of conquest of Africa] have not actually ended - the artillery has just transformed into a different type against us farmers today. All of us are fighting”. One of these fighters, Wangũi wa Kamonji, argues, in relationship to the current global health crisis, that: “COVID-19 has offered us an invitation to re-think our relationship with food as a source of nourishment, recognising that food is the way in which human beings connect with Earth, and the way Earth connects with human beings. We are prompted to embrace our vulnerability with courage. Wangũi wa Kamonji goes on to write that: “The Western modernity project, beginning in the European Enlightenment, asserted the individual (hu)man’s control over all life, Earth included, and created an illusion of invincibility. These ideas and ways of being were later transplanted violently across the world through colonialism …". Wangũi wa Kamonji argues “that to regain one’s wholeness from this illusion, involves regaining one’s acknowledgement and comfort with vulnerability.” Today, we further unpack the relationship between food, security/insecurity and global climate change and what African communities are doing to resist the imposition of Western solutions, rooted in anti-human, aggressive capitalist interventions articulated through land grabbing, false promises, false science, and colonializing practices, a clear example of the narrow nationalist and of a post-colonial experience. We explore this and more with: Anne Maina is the National Coordinator of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya. www.bibakenya.org She has been actively working on challenging false solutions being pushed in Africa like Genetic Engineering, biofuels, the push for a green revolution in Africa and carbon markets as a strategy to cope with climate change in Africa. She has been very instrumental in the growth and development of networks such as the Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF), Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and other networks in Africa. Ferdinand Wafula is an agroecology practitioner trained in community-based development, bio-intensive and permaculture methods. He is a promoter and trainer of bio-inputs at the farmer level for Healthy Soil Healthy Food at Bio Gardening Innovations in Western Kenya. Timothy A. Wise is a senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. He is the author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food (New Press 2019). He also authored a 2020 assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. He lives in Cambridge, Mass. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program! Image: Aurélia Fronty in Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees, Franck Prévot

The histories of Black working-class struggle, specifically in the South are rooted in radical methodologies that are grounded in the material conditions that are structured by the realities set in racial capitalist logic. Radical Black labor movements are an essential manifestation of the Black liberation struggle. Joe William Trotter, Jr in 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭: 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘓𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢, argues that black workers are critical to any discussion of the nation’s productivity, politics, and the future of work in today’s global economy. Yet, too often, popular, journalistic, public policy, and academic analysis treat the black poor and working class as consumers rather than producers, as takers rather than givers, and as liabilities rather than assets” [xv]. Dominant narratives that play out in mainstream media on questions around democracy center the white working class, largely ignoring the role peoples of African descent, women, and other nonwhite workers played and play in the holding the promises of democracy accountable [xv]. From organizational formations ranging from the Colored National Labor Union to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters [and its vital component the Ladies Auxiliary] to the League of Revolutionary Black Workers to Coalition of Black Trade Unions to Black Workers for Justice, radical organizers such as Dora Jones, Bonita Williams, Esther Cooper Jackson, Claudia Jones, Maida Springer played a vital role in moving the issues of African/a peoples to the level of human rights [𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳: 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘢𝘳 𝘗𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴; 𝘖𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘓𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳 & 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘳: 1619-1981]. Today, we present a recent conversation we had with CAUSE, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment [https://amazoncause.com] where we explore the ways in which CAUSE is identifying its task in this moment of rebellion, a moment that is reverberations of moments before, those moments when African/a peoples sought to restructure the relationships that were forced upon them. We center this conversation in the following terms of engagement, specifically in an effort to provide context and help us think about the current moment while simultaneously laying the groundwork for future moment … this conversation is framed by exploring the terrains of struggle, thinking through the conditions within which CAUSE is developing its practice; what are the continuities or in what way does CAUSE map its praxis into the traditions – or genealogies of radical Black working class struggle; and finally, what is the vision beyond struggle – how are the objectives – the particularities – of the conditions within which CAUSE practice is being developing, connect with a radical imagination needed to move further toward liberation? It is with this, that it is clear to me the work that has been initiated – the processes of collective organization for collective outcome – by CAUSE is essential to the current moment of radical possibilities … the real – the lived realities – that are being addressed at their material-local-level – have global implications! Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Image: Esther Cooper Jackson, 1969 The Esther Cooper Jackson Book Collection.

Gloria Emeagwali writes in Africa and the Academy: Challenging Hegemonic Discourses on Africa, that “colonialism was a system of administration and a process of exploitation geared towards creating capitalist relations and the economic and sociological aggrandizement of the colonizer through covert and overt psychological, economic, and social mechanisms. Accordingly, this necessitated the subordination of knowledge systems and distorted the epistemologies of the colonized African to the logic and dynamics of colonial production systems and hierarchies” [12]. The institution that this process of exploitation finds fertile ground to proliferate in its most articulate expression of contradictions, is in the academy, the university. Gloria Emeagwali adds clarity to this reality when she writes that the “logic of colonial and also postcolonial capitalism was to undermine indigenous technical skill and expertise so as to create an economic milieu favorable for continued domination and exploitation” [12]. To create and recreate the self-perpetuating systems of subjugation of African humanity, the biopolitical production of life itself. To repurpose the function of learning, sharpening the e/affect of the colonial logic to be birthed and rebirthed in the minds of African peoples. Thereby, arresting the imagination, the ability to not simply become conscious but to be critically conscious, is the purpose. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni in Empire, Global Coloniality and Subjectivity, adds even more clarity to this reality by highlighting that “Western education emerged in Africa as one of the technologies of subjectivation” [177]. Instead of higher education becoming a “medium to transfer the needed technological skills from the West into Africa, it became largely a laboratory for Westernization that produced Africans who were alienated from their societies and cultures” [177]. Today, we present a recent conversation with Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, where we explore the African university, the politics of knowledge production and access. Professor Zeleza is and has been at the forefront of conversations around African history and intellectual traditions, the role of the university, knowledge production and Pan Africanism are but a few points of inquiry. Professor Paul Zeleza is currently Associate Provost and North Star Distinguished Professor at Case Western Reserve University. Prof Zeleza was also recent past vice chancellor (president) and professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. He has given lectures around the world and has taught and/or served as an administrator at 12 universities in six countries, on three continents and within the Caribbean region. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and reviews, short stories and publicly accessible essays as well as authored or edited 28 books, several of which have won international awards. He is also a leader in academic governance, policy analysis, as well as an expert in African, gender, diaspora, and development studies. If you have not engaged the extensive work of Professor Zeleza, we invite you to do so! Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen intently. Think critically. Act accordingly. Image: Nea Onnim, which means “He who does not know.” It is from the Akan proverb, “Nea onnim no sua a ohu,” which roughly translates as, “When he who does not know learns, he gets to know.”

Normally, we provide an introduction that attempts to situate or appropriately orient our conversations … however, there are those instances where the conversations have their way of orienting themselves … creating paths to push us to seek more information or expand and further strengthen paths that we have started … What we will present today, is one of those conversations that take on a life of its own … the paths pushing us to think beyond the limits of now form organically. Today, we are pleased to have filmmaker Ọnuọra Abụah of AEA films back with us to talk about their recent work. We situate their efforts in a tradition of memory keepers in new material technologies. The documentaries, we reference in this conversation, can be viewed via YouTube on AEA Films UK page. As a director, writer, and producer Ọnuọra Abụah began his career as an actor in London. Born in Kenya to a Nigerian Father and Rwandese/Ugandan mother, he spent most of his youth living across Central and West Africa. After starring in his self-written play, Another Biafra, plays in theatre, he soon began writing his debut feature film, Woolwich Boys, receiving acclaim and tv distribution in the UK and Africa. His sophomore feature, Mona was invited to over 20 film festivals around the world winning the Luxor African Film Festival's Grand Prize and nominated for numerous other awards. A full catalogue of the collective work of AEA Films can be found @ https://www.aeafilms.com/ Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Listen closely. Think intently. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program!

This year, 2022, marks the 50th anniversary of the radical transformation of the Institute of Race Relations [IRR]. On April 18, 1972, the direction and relevance of the IRR was transformed from a policy-oriented, establishment, academic institution to an anti-racist ‘thinktank’ under the leadership of A. Sivanandan. This momentous change shifted the Institute’s focus, responding to the needs of Black people and all those affected by racism, and making direct analyses of institutionalised racism in Britain and the rest of Europe. In this program, we will explore, more deeply, the significance, meaning, and legacy of the 50th anniversary of the radical transformation of the IRR with Colin Prescod. Colin Prescod (born 1944) is a British sociologist and cultural activist, originally from Trinidad, who in a career spanning five decades has worked as an academic, documentary filmmaker, theatre maker, and BBC Television commissioning editor, as well as being involved with many cultural and community projects. He is chair of the London-based Institute of Race Relations and a member of the editorial working committee of the international journal Race and Class. Other positions in which he served include as a member of the (London) Mayor's Commission on African and Asian Heritage, on the Greater London Authority's Heritage Diversity Task Force, as founding-Chair (1993–2001) of The Drum, Birmingham, and Chair of the Association for Cultural Advancement through Visual Art (ACAVA), London. This program is part of a collaboration between Africa World Now Project and the Institute of Race Relations and its journal of Race & Class, based in London, where we engage in transnational dialogue that intentionally disrupts dominant discourses around racial oppression. These programs are designed to inform the ways we think about the persistent and evolutionary nature of global racial oppression in order to develop an analysis to radically and systematically address it. Big big shout out to Sophia Siddiqui with help on producing! IRR50: harnessing the spirit of transformation: https://irr.org.uk/article/irr50/ Music: Old and New Dreams is the second album by jazz quartet Old and New Dreams. The record features trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell, and was recorded in 1979 … It then fades into … Nala Sinephro – Album: Space 1.8 – Track: Space 8; Going into break – Nala Sinephro – Album: Space 1.8 – Track: Space 1; Outtro: De La Soul with Chuck D, We The People

Cultivating a historical consciousness requires effort. Purpose. A desire to organize information in order to develop projects that intend to directly confront and heighten the contradictions that inform structural inequities, which have direct and indirect implications on the lived realities of every person, every community around the world. There is no debate that imperialism is a product of a by-gone era. As long as racial capitalism is the modus operandi of global interaction, the desire to exploit and extract natural resources and create narratives of a distinct other will live on. And there is no amount of educating on diversity, equity, and inclusion that will change this fact. John Bellamy Foster in an article titled, A Warning to Africa: The New U.S. Imperial Grand Strategy, highlights the vital point that as “imperialism passes through various phases, the system evolves. At present, the world is experiencing a new age of imperialism marked by a clear articulation of a U.S. grand strategy of global domination. One indication of how things have changed is that the U.S. military is now truly global in its operations with permanent bases on every continent, including Africa, where a new scramble for control is taking place”. The central aim of this strategy is to “secure U.S. Global dominance for decades to come”; an aim that is nothing short than a project for economic and racial survival (Foster, 2006, 2). Encapsulated in the White House’s National Security Strategy statement of 2002, which is rooted in the 2001 Cheney Report, Africa has become a strategic battleground for geopolitics. By nature, “grand strategies are geopolitical in orientation”. They are necessarily geared to dominate whole geographical regions—including strategic resources such as: minerals and waterways, economic assets, populations, and vital military positions.” With this, “the most successful grand strategies of the past are seen as those of long-standing empires, which have been able to maintain their power over large geographical expanses for extended periods of time.” What is different about this phase? How are we to understand the evolution in the practices of imperialism? Nowhere has the evolution of imperialism played out in its most articulate practice than in Somalia, where drone strikes are a consistent occurrence for years. This is coupled with support for regional “peacekeeping” forces, which has yet to tackle the task of state-and institution-building. In fact, the Biden Administration has just, two days ago authorized the deployment of troops back into Somalia. This is weeks after the introduction of the recent H.R.7311 - Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, which is purported” “To direct the Secretary of State to develop and submit to Congress a strategy and implementation plan outlining United States efforts to counter the malign influence and activities of the Russian Federation and its proxies in Africa, and for other purposes.” Today, a closer look at the battle for the horn of Africa & the targeting of Somalia. AWNP’s Mwiza Munthali recently had a conversation with Dr. Sadia Ali Aden, writer, humanitarian activist who works in the healthcare sector, to dissect the politics of Somalia, the role of external forces in the nation and region, the impact of the current drought in the Horn of Africa and more. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana, Ayiti, and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Image: Fishing boats gather at dawn in the old port in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in front of destroyed Aruba Hotel: Nichole Sobecki