Is it alright to displace people off wildlife areas in effort to preserve the environment?

With a growing population not only in Africa but globally, there is a great increase in demand of land for shelter and work where there is no available space unless...
   Forest and natural areas are cleared for settlements to be built, whereby animals are displaced due to the loss of their habitats and in most cases eventual death and extinction.
 

A study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that during the decade from 1980 to 1990, the world's tropical forests were reduced by an average of 15.4 million hectares per year (0.8 percent annual rate of deforestation). The area of land cleared during the decade is equivalent to nearly three times the size of France. Imagine that?
   However, in some areas indigenous cultures and traditions have managed to live in symbiosis with the wildlife around them in effort to survive with all the available neccessities. One of these cultures are the Maasai who have been living in gaming land with their herds and whom have recently faced pressure to relocate and leave the area.
    Even though the animals do face great threat and danger from people interfering within the 'ways of nature', what happens to those who took the initiative to find a way to create their own shelter and work but are forced to end up majority of the time on the streets? Is there a way to possibly preserve the wildlife whilst still managing to provide shelter space for people especially in our continent? Or are we forced to disregard human rights in effort to preserve animal rights?

IS FOOD SECURITY THE CAUSE OF CIVIL WARS?

An inauguration is supposed to be a lively event. One of those where we get to see our political leaders in a different light. We get to see the people in them because for once they are not making promises but eating the fruits of their labor just to say the least but a comment made by the president of Uganda Yoweri Museveni during president Uhuru Kenyatta’s inauguration sent my mind sprawling in thought.
 He said that the Pokot are stealing his cattle i.e. the cattle of the people of Uganda. At first I thought how absurd but think about it, is it really that absurd?

Have you ever thought of the implications of such utterances to the regional relations between two countries?  Or let’s say his words were true the implications of such actions by the Pokot to the relations between Kenya and Uganda?

I don’t mean to be alarming or look like I want to create a mountain out of a mere mole hill but that is the very cause of some of the civil wars we have witnessed in Africa over the last decade. It is such small matters that can pass for absurd ideas that cause bloodshed and death of innocent people.
 The factor behind this is idea is food insecurity; it is this competition for resources that generates cycles of hunger and hopelessness that are likely to bred violence. The cycles occur mostly in areas with great population dispersion over the national territory and thus prove difficult for the government to control rebel groups that might spring up.

But is it really fair to blame our wars on food security? When we are resting on our laurels, a vast majority of our population is ignorant and we get swayed easily by the wind blown by our political leaders to do whatever they want? Is it really food security that is the problem or are we sitting on a stool without all three feet?

Much as we would like it to be food security alone we can’t ignore the fact that we are failing in other areas thus we are hurting each other with our continued hostility towards each other. But what is the way forward do we focus on one side and try solve one issue at a time and watch the other issues grow or do we act blind to everything except that which we want to be the main factor. I don’t but I think you just might be the next Einstein with your contribution to this topic. It’s your Eureka moment

Can Equality ever be fully sustained?

With two female presidents in Africa and women now battling men for political seat, it is now more than ever that women within our continent are beginning to rise up to the same level to their male

counterparts.

Equality on a widespread scale can be argued to be idealistic, as women are mostly naturally sculpted and gifted for certain sectors whereas men are sculpted for other tasks as well. A woman is originally seen as a mother who nurtures and teaches the value of morals and life skills, whereas the man is seen as the breadwinner who goes out into the ‘wild’ to bring back the food.

Nevertheless, during this century there has been an overturn between the responsibilities of both genders. African men have become more reluctant to work and instead decide to be the ones to up bring their children, whilst women more focused than ever have gone out into what was once a male dominated ‘wilderness’.

A woman once told us that religion, tradition and morals are passed through the mother as only the mother knows the father of the child and has the emotional capability of teaching her child of how to deal with emotions. A man on the other hand has the mentality to make decision based majority on logics of gaining the best out of it. Imagine Didier Drogba the Ivorian Captain & striker playing in defence. Now Drogba could do well in that position but he would be most effective up-front as a strikers. How does it relate? Place either women or men as Drogba, then their most effective position in life as striker and the least effective as defence.

Yet for there to be leadership or a sense of control one must be lower than the other. Equality can be achieved in certain scenarios as seen in our world of today, but can we sustain this equality or are the laws made just pen on paper and not actually implemented?

In the words of Golda Meir, “To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man” Does this mean that men are naturally better than women at being decisive or are women becoming Africa’s new men? Why try to be the man when women are the most valuable part in human life?

Child Soldiers

   The area that is usually terrorised in DRC by the Lord Residence Army is in the North-Eastern part of Congo in the Orientale province. In this province MONUC believes over 30,000 children have been abducted from areas such as Doruma, Faradje and Dungu. This is due to the Lord Residence Army that has been terrorising Southern South Sudam, North-Western Uganda which is also their Headquarters in a village called Lira. The Lord Residence Army which is lead by Joseph Kony has been terrorising this parts of the three different nation for nearly a quarter of a century.

   The ideology behind abducting children to use as child soldiers is that they are easily replaceable because they are less likely to rebel due to fear and they are easily found in school's for example. The toll of abducted children is estimate to be more than 70,000 and nearly half come from DRC alone.

   Upon the invasion and abduction each area experience a mass rape and murder within that community. It has only been 3 months into this year 2012, yet 60 girls have been drowned and in the 70,000 children abducted 5,000 of them are girls who are used as sex slaves within the camp and in arms dealing.

   Organisations have been set-up in different areas of DRC and other nations that face the abduction of children to use as child soldiers, an example of an organisation that saves, treats and help the children return to the public, after being socially accepted is War Child, which has a base in South-East of DRC (Sud-Kivu or Bukavu).

    At the moment it is safe to say that DRC – not including Orientale province- is relatively safe, apart from the occasional violent protests due to elections. All three nations terrorised by LRA have defined their armies along with the help of MONUC a UN military sector to arrest and put an end to the terror by the LRA rebels.

     On a wider scale, AL-shabaab another terror group also have their form of recruiting children into their sectors. Last year alone it was stated that in nearly all of LEDC countries, 75% of those participating in violent conflicts were the youth, ranging from the age of 8 upwards. This is taking into account that in Africa there have been very many civil wars such as the one in Rwanda, Burundi and DRC. Shockingly enough the former president of DRC the late Laurent Desire Kabila also used a form of child soldier before he was president, when he was still assisting Che Guevera.

  So why is it that we are so ignorant in helping prevent this?

Have we gone mad with war?

Name a country in this world at this very moment that is not at war with another country or itself? Hard isn't? What happened to a world full of peace and tranquility? Nowadays everywhere you look there has been violence in that are. We as humans have moral, do we not? Yet we do not follow our own rules and turn a blind eye to all the wrong that is going on. Are we paving our paths to Armageddon or worse? Anyone with solutions or is this truly inevitable because we have grown so fond and in love with war?

Does Politics go hand in hand with violence?

I'm appalled by the state of African countries these days. Recently, civil unrest has become more and more frequent during the pre-election and post-election period. Beginning with the recent most renowned post-election violence in 2007-2008 in Kenya that killed an estimated 1500 people, majority killed by a sect called the Mungiki. All those deaths were during a period of 2 to 3 months. This was to be followed by Nigeria's post-election violence that is being driven by a group called the Boko Haram and has already killed an estimated 100 people. The Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C) has its elections coming up in a few weeks, tension and fear is rising over whether there will be widespread violence and chaos. Can D.R.C escape this deadly trap that all African states are falling into or are they doomed to follow it? Is this continent bound for destruction or for glory? How can they make this evitable?

Crying Children of Afghanistan

A 6 year old Girl who was raped.

The girl above is one of many girls, who have been traumatized with unbearable pain and shame. Most of us when we think of a war-stricken country like Afghanistan, we only think of the effect on the economy, the adult and the youth majority being the men. But how many of us have thought of the emotional scars, the atrocities it brings to our female counterparts? This 6 year old girl you see up there, would have probably not even have known about sex, yet at her age she was raped by some savage men taking advantage of the war. She is not the only one, there are many more like her. That was July, the number of girls being raped would have tripled by now. Afghanistan is loosing its children, if it isn't by the emotional scarring it is by the bombings of enemies. Funny thing is those who escape that, end up falling in love with foreigners only to be beaten to death. Is this right? Is there a solution? Or is the war so bad the children of Afghanistan can not be helped?