A lot of noise again about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and underlying value. First things first any type of investment is risky and most people talking about a lack of value of bitcoin clearly don't have a full understanding of it. Facebook is worth about $435 billion where does that value come from? surely their total assets reallistically are not worth that much only the shares. Where does the value of any currency e.g the Euro come from definitely not based on the productivity of the countries witihin the eurozone. Arguments against bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies which are based on a lack of underlying value are completely BASELESS. The value of bitcoin and other crypto assets come from:
- the underlying technology (blockchain)
- its rapid adoption (over 250,000 transactions daily) certain fiat currencies don't even have close to that amount see zimbabwean dollar and venezuelan bolivar
- its potential for reaching the unbanked worldwide (More than a third of the world’s adult population make little or no use of formal financial services.)
- its proven superiority over traditional fiat currencies and assets when it comes to transaction security and speed (literally unhackable and faster than any bank transfer for transactions)
- its complete transparency (every transaction can be found easily with the transaction id)
- we all know exactly how many bitcoins are, can and will be in circulation and this can be proven with calculations. Please tell me how many dollars or euros are currently in circulation or will be in the next few years. This is the exact problem people have with quantitative easing both in the EU and America.
- yes it does not have a government backing but it is supported by the bitcoin foundation which is more transparent than any central bank (no really look it up)
These are just a few of the facts that give bitcoin and other cryptoassets their value and clearly to say that bitcoin has no underlying would only show how little people understand about cryptocurrencies. It is not something complicated just google it. Is one btc worth more than $4000 I can't say but to say that it has no underlying value and that its just a thing because of how quickly its grown in value is just uninformed.
I have and will always love and look up to Thomas Sankara because of how much of a visionary he was. His forward thinking ideologies made him capable of foreseeing many of the issues that plague the African society and community today. These same ideologies are what got him killed but exactly what we need today to deal with these same issues that plague Africa in this case very specifically debt. This article by Paula Akugizibwe on thisisafrica.me explores Sankara’s ideologies on debt and financial slavery.
Thomas Sankara, former leader of Burkina Faso, was the apparent opposite of everything we are often told that success should look like. Mansions? Cars? Who? What? Get out of here. As Prime Minister and later as President, Sankara rode a bicycle to work before he upgraded, at his Cabinet’s insistence, to a Renault 5 – one of the cheapest cars available in Burkina Faso at the time. He lived in a small brick house and wore only cotton that was produced, weaved and sewn in Burkina Faso.
Going by his lifestyle, Sankara was the antithesis of success, but it is this very distinction that enabled him to become the most successful president Africa has ever seen, in terms of what he accomplished for and with his people. Sankara would not have chopped P-Square’s money given twice a chance – in fact, he might have sat him down and taught him a thing or two about the creeping menace of pop culture patriarchy – because Thomas Sankara, “The Upright Man”, was a feminist. In this and many other ways, Sankara was the African dream come true, the only living proof that hopes of African independence are not dead on arrival.
His life ended with a bullet which, according to the testimony of some involved in his assassination, was ordered by former Liberian president Charles Taylor with the support of the French and American governments, and delivered via Blaise Compaoré – Sankara’s long-time friend and colleague, and the current president of Burkina Faso. Four years prior, when Compaoré and Sankara had jointly staged the popular coup of 1983 that made Sankara president, Burkina Faso was one of the poorest countries in the world. Under Compaoré it still is – so much so that the dire circumstances led to a series of violent protests last year.
During the years of Sankara’s administration, things were turning around, especially in the areas of health, education and the environment. Mass vaccination campaigns were rolled out with a level of rapidity and success that was unprecedented for an African country at that time. Infant mortality rates dropped. School attendance rates doubled. Millions of trees were planted in a far-sighted effort to counter deforestation. Feminism was a core element of political ideology, manifested through improved access to education for girls, and inclusion of women in leadership roles. Sankara introduced a day of solidarity in which men switched traditional gender roles – going to the market, running the household – so as to better empathise with what women handle on a daily basis. It was Africa’s greatest success story.
Members of a crowd hold a placard written ‘Thomas Sankara, look at your sons. We carry on your fight’. Photo: Gardens of Freedom/Twitter
How was this achieved? In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Sankara reflected on the state of Burkina Faso at the time that he had come to power, stating that “The diagnosis was clearly sombre. The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political.” And Sankara did not hold back with the treatment. As soon as he came into power, he set about razing the conventional structures of power and inequality.
Gone were the days of politicians living lavish lives sponsored by taxpayers’ money – Sankara issued salary cuts across the board, including for himself. The fleet of Mercedes Benzes for high-ranking officials was done away with, and the cars replaced by Renault 5s. Land and oil wealth were nationalised. While the masses celebrated, the country’s elite was enraged as decades of class inequality, which had previously favoured them, suddenly came into jeopardy.
The international community, whose interests were vested in the status quo, were also disturbed by Sankara’s radicalism, not least when he started calling for African countries to reject debt repayments. From the 1970s onwards, newly-independent African governments had begun to rapidly accumulate huge amounts of debt from rich countries and the Bretton Woods institutions: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As the Cold War intensified, such loans were increasingly used as a tool for securing political support from key countries – even governments that were patently corrupt and would inevitably default on repayment, such as Mobutu’s in the DRC, were readily provided with billions of dollars in credit.
In one of his most famous speeches [above], delivered at the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in Addis Ababa in 1987, Sankara issued a passionate call for a United Front Against Debt. “We think that debt has to be seen from the standpoint of its origins. Debt’s origins come from colonialism’s origins. Those who lend us money are those who had colonized us before,” he declared. “Under its current form, that is imperialism-controlled, debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa, aiming at subjugating its growth and development through foreign rules. Thus, each one of us becomes the financial slave, which is to say a true slave…”
At the time of his speech it was clear, just a couple of decades into independence, that African countries were quickly becoming financial slaves. Interest rates rose sharply in the 1980s, but governments continued to borrow more and more. Between 1982 and 1990, African debt doubled from US$140 billion to US$270 billion. Sankara rightly predicted that this would cripple African development for generations to come. Despite debt relief programs, which have resulted in increased spending on health and education in African countries, Jubilee Debt Campaign estimates that in 2008, low income countries paid over US $20 million a day to rich countries.
Their decision-making power is also constrained within the limits of orders given by the institutions and countries to which they are indebted. Strangely enough, while these orders demand decreased public spending for example on health, they don’t seem to have made a dent on the perpetual rise of Africa’s waBenzi clan: politicians rolling in flashy Mercedes Benzes bought with taxpayers’ money. And to make matters worse, with access to new creditors – especially China – many African governments are once again sinking into the vicious cycle of debt dependency that Sankara foresaw.
His Foreign Policy Advisor, Fidèle Kientega, explains how this foresight was shared with ordinary people. “Sankara did not dictate to people or force them to work. He told them about the mechanisms of getting loans…He said that they could relax at home and ask him to borrow money from the neo-colonialists, but that they would have to bear in mind that they and their children would have to pay back the loans with interests. Consequently, his government would find it difficult to provide universal education and health care because he would have to spend a greater chunk of the meagre tax revenues in servicing the debt. They could also beg for aid but then they would remain beggars forever. The people got the message and were motivated into working harder.”
Stories of Sankara tend to focus on his radical policies, but it is this approach that was probably the most radical of all – his efforts to bring discussions and decisions, “the apparatus of democracy” as Kientega puts it, to ordinary people. He was able to do this not only because he had political commitment to the proverbial grassroots – as many leaders claim to do – but because, through the choices he made, he positioned himself as their equal. Sankara made personal sacrifices that no other president has ever made, and did not view them as sacrifices, but as an act of solidarity, of African pride. In his view it was only through collective commitment to such sacrifices, which he hoped would one day be viewed as “normal and simple” actions, that Africans could begin to work their way towards self-reliance.
Despite Sankara’s incredible oratorical gift, the message came across even more eloquently through his actions: it is better to live a simple life in freedom, than a fabulous lifestyle in economic chains. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, most African governments did not share his philosophy. In a recent series of debates on democracy organised by TIA, people from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa all expressed a lack of faith in their countries’ democratic systems. Why? Because, they said, existing political systems across the world don’t answer to ordinary people – they answer to money. African governments are first accountable to rich countries, then to their own local elites; and finally, if convenient, to the people.
Africa’s heavily indebted poor countries. Graphic: World Bank
In a world that only answers to money, everything is for sale – democracy, freedom, dignity, integrity. Thomas Sankara bucked this trend, and in so doing struck at the very core of the international system of control – because for once, the world was faced with an African leader it could neither buy nor co-opt.
And because he was not for sale, Sankara had to be eliminated, buried in an unmarked grave whose whereabouts are still unknown. To this day, Sankara’s family and supporters in Burkina Faso and around the world are still fighting for justice, some in the face of death threats. Meanwhile, despite the fact that some of the fastest growing economies in the world are now African, and the fact that poverty rates are falling, so much of our energy now and for the foreseeable future will have to be devoted to further reducing poverty levels relating to decades of political selling out. And the selling out continues, even as our economies are bouncing back. Why do our leaders keep selling us out? Same reason we all sell out – for nice things. “Where does this debt come from anyway?” Sankara asked. “Did we need to build mansions…or foster the mentality of overpaid men among our officers?” This last question, in particular, has become more relevant as we learn of just how much money Africa’s elite have been salting away in foreign accounts even as their countries’ foreign debts mount: ‘Capgemini and Merrill Lynch estimate in their latest World Wealth Report that Africa has about 100,000 “high net worth individuals” with a total of $1.2 trillion in liquid assets. The debts, on the other hand, are owed by the African people as a whole through their governments.’
Of all the holy cows in the world today, materialism is probably the deepest and most universally entrenched – from home to school to pop culture. This entrenchment is necessary to preserve the current system of inequality, because it opens us all up to compromise, to co-option. How much would you sell your values for? How much do you sell your values for? Sankara demonstrated that the make-or-break of freedom is not so much about heroes and politics as it is about the very personal struggle between principles and cash-money.
A week before he died, Sankara said, “revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, but you cannot kill ideas”. And so, for us today, the final challenge rests not in finding more Sankaras, but in becoming them – in bringing these ideas to life. “You have to dare to look reality in the face and take a whack at some of the long-standing privileges,” Sankara said, “so long-standing in fact that they seem to have become normal, unquestionable.” And that’s the most daunting thing of all, because it requires a struggle with the person in the mirror.
Exploring Nigerian History through Digital Pop Art
Williams Chechet is a digital artist and graphic designer interested in how Africans across the globe understand and experience their own history and culture. Inspired by pop art, his project, We Are The North comprises of a series of artworks inspired by portraits of Northern Nigerians.
As young 21st century Africans a lot of us aren’t as familiar with our history as we should be or as familiar with our history as we are with the history of other nations. Now, this is mostly due to the failings of the education system amongst many other failings, but today with easy internet access that excuse is unacceptable. One of such points in our African history is that of Nnamdi Azikiwe, father of Nigerian independence, first president of Nigeria, exiled from Ghana alongside Sierra Leonan African Nationalist Wallace Johnson on sedition charges for an article. This article is one that is relevant for young Africans today more than ever because the effects still cripple our societies today, we can only begin to break our chains when we realised we are chained.
" Personally, I believe the European has a god in whom he believes and whom he is representing in his churches all over Africa. He believes in the god whose name is spelt Deceit. He believes in the god whose law is 'ye strong, must weaken the weak.' Ye 'civilised' Europeans you must 'civilise' the 'barbarous' Africans with machine guns. Ye Christian Europeans, you must 'Christianize' the pagan Africans with bombs, poison gases, etc. In the colonies the Europeans believe in the god that command ye Administrators, make Sedition Bill to keep the African ragged, make Deportation Ordinances to send the Africans to exile whenever they dare to question your authority. Make an Ordinance to grab his money so that he cannot stand economically. Make a levy bill to force him to pay taxes for the importation of unemployed Europeans to serve as Stool Treasurers. Send detectives to stay around the house of any African who is nationally conscious and who is agitating for national independence and if possible, round him up in 'criminal frame-ups' so that he could be kept behind bars."
The story of this group is incredible. I described this to one of my friends as “sacred music”- the joy that HCRB puts in their compositions is kind of like divine party music, as transcendental as it is groovy.
Also, thinking about starting an African music tumblr.
Probably my greatest idol, Thomas Isidore Sankara was a beacon of inspiration for leaders worldwide. He was a leader who knew what his people and lived to serve them, always leading from the front and encouraging the self sustainance of his country.
‘He who feeds you controls you’ one of his many sayings that stands true till today, a saying that also showed his ability to empathise with ordinary citizens and the hardships they face when trying to afford imported goods.
Thomas Sankara’s 1984 address to the UN General Assembly testifies to his being an example for all African leaders of the past and present. From speaking on behalf of the children of the poor, to speaking on behalf of journaslists whose work quality suffers from censorship or corruption,to even athletes, in this address to the General Assembly he let the whole world know that he understood their difficulties and was with them.
“I speak on behalf of the millions of human beings … thrown out of work by a system that is structurally unjust and periodically unhinged, who are reduced to only glimpsing in life a reflection of the lives of the affluent. I speak on behalf of women the world over, who suffer from a male-imposed system of exploitation. … Women who struggle and who proclaim with us that the slave who is not able to take charge of his own revolt deserves no pity for his lot. This harbors illusions in the dubious generosity of a master pretending to set him free. Freedom can be won only through struggle, and we call on all our sisters of all races to go on the offensive to conquer their rights.
I speak on behalf of the mothers of our destitute countries who watch their children die of malaria or diarrhea, unaware that simple means to save them exist. The science of the multinationals does not offer them these means, preferring to invest in cosmetics laboratories and plastic surgery to satisfy the whims of a few women or men whose smart appearance is threatened by too many calories in their overly rich meals, the regularity of which would make you—or rather us from the Sahel—dizzy. We have decided to adopt and popularize these simple means, recommended by the WHO and UNICEF.
I speak, too, on behalf of the child. The child of a poor man who is hungry and who furtively eyes the accumulation of abundance in a store for the rich. The store protected by a thick plate glass window. The window protected by impregnable shutters. The shutters guarded by a policeman with a helmet, gloves, and armed with a billy club. The policeman posted there by the father of another child, who will come and serve himself—or rather be served—because he offers guarantees of representing the capitalistic norms of the system, which he corresponds to.
“We are heirs of the revolution” by Thomas Sankara
I speak on behalf of artists—poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and actors—good men who see their art prostituted by the alchemy of show-business tricks.
I cry out on behalf of journalists who are either reduced to silence or to lies in order to not suffer the harsh low of unemployment.
I protest on behalf of the athletes of the entire world whose muscles are exploited by political systems or by modern-day slave merchants.
My country is brimming with all the misfortunes of the people of the world, a painful synthesis of all humanity’s suffering, but also—and above all—of the promise of our struggles. This is why my heart beats naturally on behalf of the sick who anxiously scan the horizons of science monopolized by arms merchants. My thoughts go out to all of those affected by the destruction of nature and to those 30 million who will die as they do each year, struck down by the formidable weapon of hunger. As a military man, I cannot forget the soldier who is obeying orders, his finger on the trigger, who knows the bullet being fired bears only the message of death. …. I protest on behalf of all those who vainly seek a forum in this world where they can make their voice heard and have it genuinely taken into consideration. Many have preceded me at this podium and others will follow. But only a few will make the decisions. Yet we are officially presented as being equals. Well, I am acting as spokesperson for all those who vainly see a forum in this world where they can make themselves heard. So yes, I wish to speak on behalf of all “those left behind,” for “I am human, nothing that is human is alien to me.”
Our revolution in Burkina Faso embraces misfortunes of all peoples. It also draws inspiration from all of man’s experiences since his first breath. We wish to be the heirs of all the world’s revolutions and all the liberation struggles of the peoples of the Third World. Our eyes are on the profound upheavals that have transformed the world. We draw the lessons of the American Revolution, the lessons of its victory over colonial domination and the consequences of that victory. We adopt as our own the affirmation of the Doctrine whereby Europeans must not intervene in American affairs, nor Americans in European affairs. Just as Monroe proclaimed “America to the Americans” in 1823, we echo this today by saying “Africa to the Africans,” “Burkina to the Burkinabè.”
In the words of a hero ‘Malheur a ceux qui ballonent les peuples’ ‘Le Patrachie ou La Mort, Nous Vaincrons’
The Igbo compound at the International Slavery Museum
The recreation of the family compound includes part of a titled man’s meeting house (obi) and a woman’s house. The meeting house has a decorative wooden door and a carved wooden panel that screens a shrine within. The houses are partially thatched using traditional palm frond panels made in southeast Nigeria.
All of the carved wooden items and furnishings for the compound were made by craftspeople in south eastern Nigeria in 2007. Much of the wall area of the compound is decorated with bold and colourful designs traditionally painted by Igbo women for special occasions.
I meant to post this on the 13th of July (since that’s the day he died) but was busy… but anyway, there were many mercenaries during the Nigerian civil war but this person I think is the most significant and memorable.
Background
He was born in Helgesta, Flen municipality in Södermanland, Sweden. The son of an explorer called Eric von Rosen. His father was an explorer and like most of the family very pro-nazi. (The family is actually related to Hermann Göring through marriage) Carl Gustav however was the complete opposite of most of his family and detested Nazi ideology and fascism, he showed this by joining a relief mission to Ethiopia after Mussolini’s Italy invaded.
After the outbreak of WWII “Count von Rosen purchased three aircraft to donate to the Finnish Air Force — one Douglas DC-2 (DO-1) and two Koolhoven FK.52 (KO-129 and KO-130). He converted the Douglas DC-2 to a bomber and then volunteered to fly it in Finland’s air force, where he was commissioned a Lieutenant. He dropped bombs on advancing Soviet troops during the Continuation War before leaving for England. In London, he signed up as a volunteer for the Royal Air Force. Due to his family’s relationship with Hermann Göring, he was rejected. He returned to KLM and flew the London to Lisbon route, which sometimes was at risk from Nazi interception. Meanwhile, his Dutch wife joined the Dutch resistance and fought against the Nazis — sadly, she was killed during the war.”
After the war he helped train and organize Ethiopia’s air force post-independence.
Biafran War and Biafran air Force
In 1969, Count von Rosen would again take up an activist role except this time it would be in the Biafran conflict. The Nigerian government attempted to economically strangle Biafra. The result was mass starvation. The sight of emaciated and dying children brought von Rosen to action. First, he flew aid missions, at least once flying to Biafra at wave-top height to avoid detection. While in country, he saw the Soviet-backed (equipment was also supplied by the UK, USA and Saudi Arabia. Egypt intervened in the actual conflict) Nigerian Air Force bombing and strafing civilian villages at will. Rejecting such brutality, he decided to personally intervene.
He returned to Sweden and acquired five Saab Malmö MFI-9B trainers, a piston-engine aircraft. He had the planes converted for ground attack missions by mounting machine guns and affixing pods for 12 French-made 68mm rockets under the wings (six on each side). Green paint schemes and other modifications were completed in Gabon. As the commander of the Biafran Air Force (or BAF, as he called it), von Rosen recruited two other Swedish pilots plus an ex-RCAF veteran pilot named Lynn Garrison, as well as two local Biafran pilots. Together, these men would fly the planes in combat — they would face a vastly superior Soviet-armed Nigerian air force/Egyptian air force.
On May 22, 1969, von Rosen’s attack planes launched their first mission. He called his planes, “the Biafran Babies” after the children who were dying from the Nigerian government’s indiscriminate bombings. His BAF aircraft achieved complete tactical surprise, ambushing the Nigerian fighter jets on the ground. In that mission and the many that would follow over the next three months, they would destroy four MiG-17s, a Heron, two Canberras and three Il-28s (half of Nigeria’s bomber fleet). All were caught on the ground at the NAF bases in Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin City and Ughelli.
He would lead the missions in total radio silence, attacking at either dusk or dawn so as to minimize the risk from anti-aircraft fire. Against larger targets, all of the aircraft flew together — against small targets, they would attack in pairs. During this time, they also rocketed and destroyed an airport control tower. The little “Biafran Babies” were frequently fired upon by anti-aircraft artillery, but rarely hit, given their smart, surprise hit-and-run tactics.
Nonetheless, after a few months, the Nigerian Air Force was able to re-equip with more Soviet aircraft. Further, in retaliation, a Nigerian Air Force MiG-17 attacked and shot down a Swedish DC-7 flight that was flying an aid mission on behalf of the Red Cross. Four of its crew were killed. By July, seeing the futility in fighting what was developing into a much stronger, Soviet-backed air force, von Rosen departed to Sweden. Nonetheless, as news of other atrocities emerged, he returned in August in an attempt to train a follow-on group of local Biafran pilots to carry forward.
In September of 1969, five North American T-6Gs were acquired for the new BAF and of these, four successfully arrived in Biafra, landing in October 1969. For the next three months, these aircraft flew missions in the hands of a group of Portuguese ex-military pilots. By January 1970, however, the mission ended as the Biafran conflict wound up in a bloody conclusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from writing reviews of watches it’s that one’s idea of affordability can vary dramatically. Some think that $150 for a watch is vain extravagance. Last weekend I had a dinner with a friend that is a Wall Street-based broker. Upon finding out that I write about “affordable” watches he asked for suggestions in the sub-$10,000 range. What it comes down to is that what is affordable is relative. In this case I’ll be looking at a few watches that I consider to be affordable which is a watch under $500.
This go round we will be taking a look at a $10 Daniel Wellington alternative, a classically styled Seiko Racing Chronograph, an aggressively minimalist timepiece from Kent Wang, Christopher Ward’s take on the modern dive watch, Hamilton’s flawed attempt at a diver, and lastly Nick Harris branching out from customization of watches to cool original designs.
This is the 9th set of reviews that I’ve done of affordable watches. You can check out previous versions here.
You can also find a complete list of all of the gear and all of the accessories I used in the styling here.
Osondi Owendi, an Igbo idiom, conveys the idea that sometimes things can be good for one person but bad for another. These differences should not cause tension but rather each person should pursue their own personal preference. It is similar to “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”
