Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa

Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa PDF Author: Patrick Wanakuta Baraza
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description

Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa

Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa PDF Author: Patrick Wanakuta Baraza
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book

Book Description


Drumming up Dialogue

Drumming up Dialogue PDF Author: Patrick Wanakuta Baraza
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462016219
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
If, as they say, we all come out of Africa, then somewhere in Kenyas Rift Valley we first learned to live as human beings and we quickly learned to quarrel, too. Migration patterns within Kenya are as complicated as any in the U.S. or Europe and its multi-ethnic history is much, much longer. Fr. Baraza, knows both the brightness of human progress in a peaceful countryside as well as the shadows left by war and fighting. He writes about how to resolve conflicts and difficulties by people who have had long life experience. Drumming Up Dialogue applies the thinking of three leading writers in the field of conflict management to the Bukusu community of Kenya: philosopher Martin Buber, political scientist Fred Charles Ikl, and cultural anthropologist William Ury. These three theorists address the creating of peace between individuals, between opposing factions, and between countries and cultures. Drumming is a traditional Bukusu way of communication. Fr. Baraza uses the drum as a metaphor for the different ways dialogue can be used and interpreted. Baraza presents one of the very few studies of culture of the Bukusu people and the only one to address dialogue through their religions. Based upon the personal experiences and Barazas ongoing contact with his Bukusu people, Drumming Up Dialogue seeks to awaken us to the cultural values of the Bukusu and offer an alternative way to conflict resolution. Hilary Martin, PhD, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa

Rival Claims for the Soul of Africa PDF Author: Patrick Wanakuta Baraza
Publisher: Turnkey Press
ISBN: 9781934454022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
While Africa is the continent on which human life began, it is also a continent that has been invaded throughout the history of mankind. Christianity was firmly established in North Africa by the third century CE only to be extinguished when Islam invaded North Africa in the 7th century CE. Once the Portuguese sailed around Africa, the rest of Western Europe followed and Christianity bloomed in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the centuries Christianity and Islam have attempted to convert Africa. However, Africa's own traditional religions have remained ingrained in the culture and in the hearts of its people. Today, all three religions have been integrated into the continent's cultures. In turn, Africa has made these religions "African" by infusing them with her own traditional religions and values. This book will bring to light the history behind Africa's three great religions, as well as explaining the ebb and flow of these religions and how both religion and culture have brought together a unique way of life.

Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC

Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC PDF Author: William Mervin Gumede
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN: 1770225463
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
As a spokesman for a country, a continent and the developing world, Thabo Mbeki played a crucial role in world politics, but to many people he remained an enigma throughout his presidency. Is this simply because he was a secretive man, or were there complicated political factors at play? Who was the real Mbeki? In this book, multiple-award-winning journalist William Mervin Gumede chronicles Mbeki’s spectacular rise to dominate Africa’s oldest liberation movement. He explores the complex position that Mbeki occupied – following in Nelson Mandela’s footsteps, holding together an alliance with deep ideological differences, and ruling an intensely divided country. Revealing the political and personal tensions behind the scenes, Gumede explains how Mbeki sought to mould the ANC into his image through tight control, and exposes the intrigues behind the battle for succession. Covering Mbeki’s attempts to modernise the economy and kick-start an African Renaissance, and investigating his controversial stance on issues from AIDS to Zimbabwe, the book offers invaluable insights into the arcane machinations behind political decisions that touch the lives of millions every day.

My Traitor's Heart

My Traitor's Heart PDF Author: Rian Malan
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193900
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
An essay collection that offers “a fascinating glimpse of post-apartheid South Africa” from the bestselling author of My Traitor’s Heart (The Sunday Times). The Lion Sleeps Tonight is Rian Malan’s remarkable chronicle of South Africa’s halting steps and missteps, taken as blacks and whites try to build a new country. In the title story, Malan investigates the provenance of the world-famous song, recorded by Pete Seeger and REM among many others, which Malan traces back to a Zulu singer named Solomon Linda. He follows the trial of Winnie Mandela; he writes about the last Afrikaner, an old Boer woman who settled on the slopes of Mount Meru; he plunges into President Mbeki’s AIDS policies of the 1990s; and finally he tells the story of the Alcock brothers (sons of Neil and Creina whose heartbreaking story was told in My Traitor’s Heart), two white South Africans raised among the Zulu and fluent in their language and customs. The twenty-one essays collected here, combined with Malan’s sardonic interstitial commentary, offer a brilliantly observed portrait of contemporary South Africa; “a grimly realistic picture of a nation clinging desperately to hope” (The Guardian).

Portugal and Africa

Portugal and Africa PDF Author: D. Birmingham
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349274909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The late-medieval Portuguese who arrived in Africa were colonizers in the roman style, gold merchants on an imperial scale, conquistadores in the Hispanic tradition. Although their empire struggled to survive centuries of Dutch and English competition, it revived in the twentieth century on a tide of white migration. Settlers, however, brought racial conflict as well as economic modernisation and the Portuguese colonies went through spasms of violence which resembled those of Algeria and South Africa. Liberation eventually came but the peoples of the old colonial cities clung tightly to their acquired traditions, eating Portuguese dishes, writing Portuguese poetry and studying in Portuguese universities.

Being Christian in Vandal Africa

Being Christian in Vandal Africa PDF Author: Robin Whelan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520401433
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Being Christian in Vandal Africa investigates conflicts over Christian orthodoxy in the Vandal kingdom, the successor to Roman rule in North Africa, ca. 439 to 533 c.e. Exploiting neglected texts, author Robin Whelan exposes a sophisticated culture of disputation between Nicene ("Catholic") and Homoian ("Arian") Christians and explores their rival claims to political and religious legitimacy. These contests--sometimes violent--are key to understanding the wider and much-debated issues of identity and state formation in the post-imperial West.

Great Soul

Great Soul PDF Author: Joseph Lelyveld
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307389952
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success in seizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggle as a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of his followers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals of social justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and rural poor. “A revelation. . . . Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma.”—Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows in vivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, social values, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped on another subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and then tested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the way to the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emerges as one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperous lawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated to political and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-by-step through the heroic—and tragic—last months of this selfless leader’s long campaign when his nonviolent efforts culminated in the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing that ended only with his own assassination. India and its politicians were ready to place Gandhi on a pedestal as “Father of the Nation” but were less inclined to embrace his teachings. Muslim support, crucial in his rise to leadership, soon waned, and the oppressed untouchables—for whom Gandhi spoke to Hindus as a whole—produced their own leaders. Here is a vital, brilliant reconsideration of Gandhi’s extraordinary struggles on two continents, of his fierce but, finally, unfulfilled hopes, and of his ever-evolving legacy, which more than six decades after his death still ensures his place as India’s social conscience—and not just India’s.

Rival Reputations

Rival Reputations PDF Author: Van Jackson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107133319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Surveys patterns of crisis, coercion and credibility in US-North Korea relations from the 1960s through to 2010.

A Fallen Citadel and Other Poems

A Fallen Citadel and Other Poems PDF Author: J. Abala
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956727539
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 70

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Book Description
A Fallen Citadel and Other Poems is a powerful collection of over forty prose poems. The poems cover an array of issues ranging from the crisis that ensued after the 2007-2008 elections in Kenya to other social issues: loss of identity, poverty, hopelessness, and AIDs. These poems are powerful, vivid, full of imagery, and delightful. Some begin tragically, but end with hope; they begin with an everyday event, but end with a philosophical question about the meaning of life; and others are not only disturbing, but also thought provoking. Abalas poetic maneuvers in this collection are bound to delight and fascinate any reader.