Missionary, Mercenary, Mystic, Misfit, by J.

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Missionary, Mercenary, Mystic, MisfitJ. is on a mission: to prove to the world that there’s a market for “humanitarian aid fiction”. As a highly experienced aid worker and prolific blogger (latterly at AidSpeak, formerly at Tales from the hood and one half of the team behind popular satirical aid blog, Stuff Expat Aid Workers’ Like (SEAWL), if anyone has the credentials to make this work, it should be J. But with his latest effort to bring the genre to life, Missionary, Mercenary, Mystic, Misfit, he doesn’t quite hit the mark.

The story centres on a refugee camp just inside Ethiopia’s border with Somalia – Dolo Ado. Or to be more precise, it centres on two American inhabitants of Dolo Ado – Jon and Mary-Anne, employees of Oxfam America and the fictional World Aid Corps respectively. Each lives apart from their partner, leaving space for a will-they-won’t-they relationship to emerge between them.  Continue reading →

Opening aid, but in the wrong direction

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Cartoon adapted from HakiElimu, 2005

Cartoon adapted from HakiElimu, 2005

Making aid more accountable is a worthy goal. So is building support for public spending on international aid among citizens of donor countries. But a new proposal with precisely these goals in mind risks disempowering the very people aid is supposed to help.

The proposal, which goes by the title Opening Aid Policy, is to give British citizens – call them taxpayers or voters if you prefer – a chance to shape British aid policy: first to determine aid priorities and then even to cast their vote on which specific projects should get funded.  Continue reading →

The centre cannot hold

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“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

from The Second Coming (1919), by William Butler Yeats.

A personal crisis, a nervous breakdown?

Inspiration for a ground-breaking literary masterpiece?

A view of early 20th century European politics that seems to bear ominous relevance to present day Tanzania?

Proof that poets can describe the second law of thermodynamics?

Or all of the above?

Preparing for spontaneity: Kissinger and Nyerere in the Wikileaks cables

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The folks at Wikileaks have just released another huge batch of US diplomatic cables, this time dating from 1972-1976. They’re calling them the Kissinger Cables, after the controversial US Secretary of State at that time.

With nearly two million cables, this is a vast resource for historians with an interest in US diplomacy at the height of the cold war.

There are over 4,000 cables sent from Tanzania, as well as nearly 11,000 cables sent to the country, making it rather more than an afternoon’s work to look through. But skimming through, there’s clearly a wealth of information here, most particularly on Tanzania-Uganda relations during this difficult period, and on President Nyerere’s views (privately expressed to various US diplomats) on African politics.

But as with the previous release of US diplomatic cables, it’s the little details that are most intriguing. Continue reading →

What the Tanzania press is saying about the visit of Chinese president, Xi Jinping

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Tanzanian newspaper front pages 26/3/2013, via mjengwablog.com and millardayo.com.

The historic visit of the new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to Tanzania this week was a great honour for the country, only the second country to be visited by President Xi. But how did the Tanzanian papers report the visit? I took a look through the major papers’ websites to find out.

The Citizen and Mwananchi led with Xi’s words about China’s relationship with Africa as a whole. The Citizen’s headline summed up the coverage: China’s promise to Africa: We’ll give you $20bn this year, and we shan’t bully you. Lots of money and no interference was the message. Mwananchi’s Rais wa China aahidi misaada bila masharti (President of China promises aid without conditions) was much the same. Continue reading →

A mighty tree has fallen: Chinua Achebe 1930-2013

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Chinua Achebe 1930-2013

Chinua Achebe 1930-2013

Chinua Achebe has died, at the age of 82. He leaves a legacy that will live on for generations.

He told a different story of Africa, perhaps best summed up by a Igbo proverb he liked to quote:

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Achebe was a historian of the lions, telling the story of colonialism in Africa from an African perspective. And by doing so, he changed not just African literature, but African politics as well, forever. Continue reading →

Xi Jinping to Tanzania, but why this honour?

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ImageThe new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, is expected in Tanzania on Sunday, just ten days after officially taking office. This is the second stop on a four-country tour that will begin in Russia and also take in South Africa and the Congo.

A state visit so early in the presidency of such a powerful global figure is a huge honour for Tanzania – the second country that Xi will visit as president.

So why is he visiting?  Continue reading →