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Articles by Aly Verjee
Dispatches From Ukraine, Sudan, and Lebanon: The Neglected Experiences of Africans Caught Up in Global Conflicts
Debating Ideas reflects the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. It is edited and managed by the International African Institute, hosted at SOAS University of London, the owners of the book series of the same name.
How saving the pangolin became a Nigerian conservation agenda
Christy’s life would have ended several years ago. Her skins would have been removed, exported, and passed off as an ingredient to be used in traditional Chinese medicine. She is still alive today, all thanks to the Pangolin Conservation Guild Nigeria or PCGN, a nonprofit organisation based in Ogun State, southwest Nigeria.
Houses of Hope: Populism and South Africa’s Complex Urban-Rural Connections
Debating Ideas reflects the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It offers debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. It is edited and managed by the International African Institute, hosted at SOAS University of London, the owners of the book series of the same name.
Sudan: The violence is a symptom of a profound collective failure
Five years ago, Sudan was a tale of optimism, democratic transition and stability. Today, the UN secretary-general describes it as a “humanitarian travesty”, even as the UN’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, warns of the risk of genocide in Darfur. We are witnessing a campaign of atrocities and bloodbaths, hunger and disease. Millions of Sudanese people fleeing their homes, hunted by armed militia and aerial bombardments, stalked by poverty and a campaign of deliberate starvation.
The colonisation of Palestine: Exhuming a British imperial crime
“Zionism will fail, the experiment to which the noble Earl referred will fail, the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country – Arab all around in the hinterland – may never be remedied…what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.” – British Government, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922, p.
African Arguments
The opening of the Refinery is the biggest good news story in decades. Is there reason to be nervous about another Dangote monopoly? On May 22, 2023, the highly anticipated Dangote Refinery was inaugurated in Lagos, Nigeria. This monumental stands as Africa’s largest oil refinery and the world’s largest single-train refinery. The refinery is set to revolutionise crude oil refining in Africa, marking a significant turning point for the oil business in Nigeria and the continent as a whole.
Au Soudan, les combats ne faiblissent pas, alors que les négociations se poursuivent en Arabie saoudite
Barbancourt le rhum des connaisseurs Trois semaines après le déclenchement de la guerre, les combats n’ont toujours pas cessé au Soudan, dimanche 7 mai. Pendant ce temps-là, les émissaires de l’armée du général Abdel Fattah Al-Bourhane et des Forces de soutien rapide (FSR) du général rival Mohamed Hamdane Daglo n’ont rien laissé filtrer quant à l’état des négociations pour un cessez-le-feu, menées sous l’égide de Riyad et de Washington, qui se sont ouvertes à Djeddah en Arabie saoudite samedi.
Five potential global consequences of Sudan’s escalating conflict
In Sudan’s 67 years as an independent state, the country has known more times of war than peace. Half a million people died in the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972). Two million people died in the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). An estimated 300,000 died in the war in Darfur. Other conflicts in eastern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile were also hugely destructive. So, the ferocious fighting that broke out in Sudan on 15 April is only the tip of what the violence could become.
The making of a global port, and the unmaking of a people
Having survived centuries of successive governments, colonialism and war, have Berbera’s dockworkers finally met their match? Somaliland’s dockworkers have been part of the unique fabric of the breakaway republic – and the broader Horn of Africa region – for centuries.
The missing $50m: Seychelles gears up for historic high-profile trial
Nine people – including a former first lady, ex-generals and top officials – face charges of stealing aid in 2002 and storing illicit firearms. In recent months, the Seychelles government has sent shockwaves through the country as it has arrested several high-profile figures, including a former first lady and numerous ex-generals. Between November 2021 and January 2022, authorities detained nine individuals on suspicion of embezzling $50 million in aid donated by the UAE in 2002.
Ethiopia’s crisis on the Blue Nile
Amid an increasingly bitter war and an impending famine in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, there is still, perhaps, one issue that unites Ethiopians, no matter their political views: that their country has the absolute right to develop and use its hydroelectric potential on the Blue Nile (or as the river is named in Ethiopia, the Abay). And that potential is on the cusp of being realised.
Think Africa Podcast ep 11: Naked protest
African Arguments is delighted to partner with the Think African podcast series, created by Sound Africa in cooperation with Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cape Town. Think African examines the big questions that define the world from an unapologetically African point of view. Episodes are released twice a month and are hosted by Jedi Ramalapa, Editor in Chief of Sound Africa.
Experiencing Covid-19 after Apartheid
Debating Ideas is a new section that aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It will offer debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. Egerton Railway Station Bus Boycott Massacre Memorial Site.
South Sudan’s High Level Revitalization Forum
Experts Regions Issue Areas Education & Training Events About Publications Projects Grants & Fellowships Visit Connect Press Blog We provide analysis, education, and resources to those working for peace around the world. More About USIP Search for experts, projects, publications, courses, and more. Search USIP.org Type of Content Countries Issue Areas Sort There are no contents that meet the filtering criteria.
Six Alternative Ways to Measure Peace in Nigeria
When measured by the death toll, Nigeria seems beset by violence. By some accounts, the COVID-19 pandemic has made experiences of violence even more common — notably, Nigeria recorded a 169% increase in abductions between 2019 and 2020. While quantifying violence is relatively straightforward, defining what peace means to ordinary Nigerians has been largely overlooked, even if such definitions may be more meaningful.
The Crisis of Ethiopian Foreign Relations – ACCORD
Amid continued domestic upheaval, Ethiopia’s foreign relations are also in crisis. This is particularly true of relations with Ethiopia’s neighbouring countries.
Senegal: Vaccine Access and Covid-19
Debating Ideas is a new section that aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It will offer debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books. Pharmacie Cayor in Thiès, Sénégal. The photo is attributed to my former RA: Brahima Ouattara.
Ethiopia: Five Steps to Sustain a Cease-Fire in Northern Ethiopia
Washington, DC — The U.S. and others can help strengthen a truce—and avert a famine—in Tigray. Many unilateral attempts to cease hostilities have quickly foundered, particularly when the party declaring the truce has suffered a military setback. In Ethiopia, suspicion toward the other side and a lack of confidence may be deepened by the actions of the federal government, its allies and Tigrayan forces in the coming days.
Ethiopia Matters to the World
Aly Verjee Lowy Interpreter June 30, 2021 But a fast-growing economy and a Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister won’t solve its problems. Read Full Article »
Ethiopia matters to the world
On 21 June, Ethiopians voted in long-awaited and twice-delayed parliamentary elections. These were the first polls held under the premiership of controversial Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed, in a country now embroiled in a civil war in the northern region of Tigray, a border dispute with neighbouring Sudan, and a regional spat with downstream Sudan and Egypt over Ethiopia’s mega-dam on the Blue Nile River – the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Lowy Institute Conversations: Linda Jaivin on her new book, The Shortest History of China
In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, Richard McGregor, Lowy Institute Senior Fellow, sits down with Linda Jaivin to discuss her new book, The Shortest History of China. Linda Jaivin is a journalist, writer and translator who has been studying Chinese politics, language and culture for more than 40 years. She is based in Sydney.
Peacewriter Prize
The Peacewriter Prize is a writing competition seeking bold and innovative responses to the world’s peacemaking challenges. Winning entries are published by HD and included in the briefing material for participants at the annual Oslo Forum. About the prize Entries should take the form of an essay, of no more than 3,000 words, on a specific thematic or geographic topic in the field of conflict mediation and peacemaking. Fresh, creative and innovative ideas are paramount.
Nigerians are the funniest people on the internet. These five prove it.
A growing wave of comedians in Nigeria are keeping the country and its diaspora laughing. A screenshot from one of Taaooma’s skits. Nigerians believe they are some of the funniest people on the internet today. This claim enjoyed fresh legs in March this year, when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a lockdown across the country, leaving many Nigerians stuck at home with plenty of time on their hands.
عالقون بين كوفيد وأوروبا العدائية -المهاجرون واللاجئون السودانيّون في بلجيكا
Debating Ideas is a new section that aims to reflect the values and editorial ethos of the African Arguments book series, publishing engaged, often radical, scholarship, original and activist writing from within the African continent and beyond. It will offer debates and engagements, contexts and controversies, and reviews and responses flowing from the African Arguments books.
Sudan, One Year After Bashir
Dictator Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan for nearly three decades, was overthrown in April 2019. After months of protests, negotiations led to a joint civilian-military transitional government to govern the country for a period of 39 months. However, Sudan’s political transition remains tenuous, and even before the coronavirus pandemic, the risks of failure were many.
African Arguments
Often the bigger challenge in addressing mental illness in Africa is not the illness itself but the false stories society has told us about mental health. Nurses in a training programme about child and adolescent mental health in Liberia. Credit: Dominic Chavez/World Bank. When I was a young teenager grappling with panic disorder and depression, I thought many times about going to the mental hospital in Kampala, Uganda.
Can a Chinese import ever be authentically African?
Kitenge is made in China, but sold, worn and inscribed with meaning in Kenya. A stall sells a wide range of kitenge in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: April Zhu. On Gaborone Road in Nairobi’s central business district, you can find at least a couple multi-storied pavilions like the Nairobi Textile Building, packed with dozens of stalls, each lined from floor to ceiling with African fabrics, their spines stacked like books in a library.
Opinion | Let’s end this competition of misery
Home Global Aly Verjee A visiting researcher at the United States Institute of Peace and a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. (Bill Koplitz/FEMA) WASHINGTON D.C. Reader, answer me this: what is the world’s worst crisis? Yemen? Syria? The Democratic Republic of Congo? South Sudan? That question may not be any easier to answer even if there are accompanying descriptors: the worst famine since the Second World War; the worst refugee crisis since Rwanda; the worst humanitarian crisis in 50 years.
CHRIS KWAJA & ALY VERJEE - After the Vote: What to Watch and Hope for in Buhari's Second Term
Two mass protest movements have, in quick succession, forced regime changes in Sudan and Ethiopia, two of the Horn of Africa’s quintessential “hard” states. A deep-seated disillusion with the security and developmental states drives the new “revolutionary” mood. What is less clear is where all the ferment and the popular demand for a new dispensation will lead. In Sudan, the ouster of Omar al-Bashir has been followed by a partial retreat of the security state.
Chad, and Darfur, After Bashir
The politics of the Central African nation of Chad are closely connected with those of Sudan, most prominently because of Darfur, the vast and troubled Sudanese region which borders Chad to the east. The recent fall of Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir—in power since 1989—raises questions about the future of Chad’s president and U.S. ally, Idriss Déby, beset by similar governance challenges and in power since 1990.
African Arguments
This year was full of spectacular fiction, spine-tingling poetry and hard-hitting non-fiction from Africa. Here is some of the best. Fiction Freshwater – by Akwaeke Emezi There are certain books which sit on your skin, weigh on your psyche, and meddle with your mind in a haunting and arresting way. Freshwater is one of them. The story centres on Ada, a young woman carrying within her an ogbanje, a spirit with multiple heads.
Nigeria 2019: The issues and electoral maths that will decide the race
What concerns will sway voters? Which regions will decide Nigeria’s next president? Election season is in full swing in Nigeria. In the presidential contest, we now know it will likely be a straight contest between incumbent Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and challenger Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Dozens of other candidates will be competing.
Africa Decides: All the upcoming elections and votes
How to use the map: the basics This African elections map shows you all the upcoming votes. Move around and click to find out more. The colour tells you approximately when the election is: Red – This month Orange – Next month Yellow – In two months Green – Beyond that The icon tells you who is up for election: Want much more in-depth information about the elections? The map just gives you the basic info.
How Kabila and the mining giants went from best friends to adversaries
Why has the DRC’s president had a complete change of heart? A new mining code has created a rift between mining multinationals and government. Credit: Sasha Lezhnev/ Enoughproject. For much of this year, two of the most powerful forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been engaged in a tense standoff. President Joseph Kabila, the country’s powerful political leader since 2001, is in one corner. A group of multi-billion-dollar international mining companies is in the other.
South Sudan’s peace process is broken
As the world’s newest nation collapses, the internationally-backed peace process risks making a bad situation worse In its short, sad history as an independent country, South Sudan has known more years of war than peace. In the fight for independence, millions of lives were lost to civil war. Eventual freedom from Sudan came in 2011.
African Arguments
After almost four years away, former president Joyce Banda finally returned to Malawi on 28 April, stepping on home soil for the first time since she lost the 2014 elections. Since her homecoming, she has been quick to criticise the current government, but has remained vague on her next steps, simply emphasising that “this country needs salvation”.
Opinion | Let’s end this competition of misery
Reader, answer me this: what is the world’s worst crisis? Yemen? Syria? The Democratic Republic of Congo? South Sudan? That question may not be any easier to answer even if there are accompanying descriptors: the worst famine since the Second World War; the worst refugee crisis since Rwanda; the worst humanitarian crisis in 50 years.
Why doesn’t South Sudanese exodus spur EA to action?
So why — as the millionth South Sudanese took refuge in Uganda earlier this year, and with the total number of South Sudanese refugee and asylum seekers now more than two million — is there no comparable shift in the political posture of East African states? It would be a mistake to believe there is a migration tipping point at which the region, accustomed to tolerating refugee populations for decades, will suddenly unite or work collaboratively to address the conflict.
Why doesn’t South Sudan’s refugee exodus spur East Africa to action?
Migration crises in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa reconfigured global politics. So why – as the millionth South Sudanese took refuge in Uganda earlier this year, and with the total number of South Sudanese refugee and asylum seekers now more than two million – is there no comparable shift in the political posture of East African states?
Dear Uhuru, don't do what Magufuli and Lungu did
Any result, however, is marred by the choice millions of Kenyans made to not participate in the most basic, fundamental exercise of democracy. It is marred by the reality that without Raila, the election was not a contest. Many people, even if they favoured Kenyatta, were anxious, and either decided that going to vote was not worth the trouble, or that the election should have been delayed, and stayed at home.
President Kenyatta - now is a time for restraint
While the impending results of Kenya's election are uncertain, it is clear that democracy in Kenya is in peril. Kenyatta must pursue the path of dialogue. The results of Kenya’s presidential election are not yet in, and voting will continue in some areas on Saturday, but Raila Odinga’s decision to boycott the election leaves only one outcome possible: President Uhuru Kenyatta will have the majority of votes cast.
Kenya's election rerun: What happened today. What happens tomorrow. - African Arguments
From 6am tomorrow morning, many, but perhaps not most, Kenyans will vote in the 26 October re-run of Kenya’s presidential election. The dramas that have occurred following the landmark Supreme Court ruling annulling the August 2017 vote have been extraordinary. And the situation continues to evolve quickly. Today was just the latest eventful day since the presidential vote on 8 August was invalidated.
Kenya: How Votes Will Be Counted, and Why Transparency is So Crucial
analysis By Aly VerjeeErrors are commonplace in vote counts. What matters is how politicians and election officials respond. The shocking murder of Christopher Msando, which came to light this week, casts a pall over Kenya's 8 August elections.
How Kenya’s votes will be counted, and why transparency is so crucial - African Arguments
The shocking murder of Christopher Msando, which came to light this week, casts a pall over Kenya’s 8 August elections. As the acting director of information and communications technology at the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Msando had a key role in two critical aspects of the electoral process: the biometric identification of voters at polling stations; and the results management system, which aggregates votes once they’ve been counted at the polling station level.
Can South Korea’s new president finally tackle corruption?
South Korea at last has a new president, Moon Jae In. Moon is a liberal, and that has absorbed much of the political discourse since his inauguration. There is anxiety on the right that he will strike a generous deal with North Korea. Similarly, there is discomfort on the American side with Moon’s foot-dragging on missile defence. In a country routinely menaced by the world’s worst tyranny, it is no surprise that North Korea issues are taking over the agenda.
South Sudan: Why Calling for a Ceasefire in South Sudan Can Be a Bad Idea
analysis By Aly VerjeeEven a seemingly uncontroversial demand can have complex, and potentially adverse, implications. On 23 March, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking to the United Nations Security Council, declared: "There can be no real dialogue for as long as South Sudan is ravaged by fighting." "All parties must respect an immediate cessation of hostilities," he said. "As President, Salva Kiir is responsible for taking the first step - and others must follow".
Why calling for a ceasefire in South Sudan can be a bad idea - African Arguments
On 23 March, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking to the United Nations Security Council, declared: “There can be no real dialogue for as long as South Sudan is ravaged by fighting.” “All parties must respect an immediate cessation of hostilities,” he said. “As President, Salva Kiir is responsible for taking the first step – and others must follow”. In his own Security Council remarks, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a similar call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Explaining China’s involvement in the South Sudan peace process
Most analyses of China’s relations with South Sudan begin and end with oil. Oil was the most important reason for China’s heavy investment in, and intensification of, relations with Sudan from the mid-1990s onwards (years prior to South Sudan’s independence in 2011). Dan Large and Luke Patey have written extensively about China’s involvement in the development of the Sudanese oil industry, one of modern China’s earliest and riskiest economic forays into Africa.
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