African Interest

Brief Summary More than any other part of the globe, Africa has become associated with conflict, insecurity and human rights atrocities. In the popular imagination and the media, overpopulation, environmental degradation and ethnic hatred dominate accounts of African violence, while in academic and policy-making circles, conflict and insecurity have also come to occupy centre stage, with resource-hungry warlords and notions of 'greed' and 'grievance' playing key explanatory roles. Since the attacks of 9/11, there has also been mounting concern that the continent's so-called 'ungoverned spaces' will provide safe havens for terrorists intent on destroying Western civilization. The Review of African Political Economy has engaged extensively with issues of conflict and security, both analysing on-going conflicts and often challenging predominant modes of explanation and interpretation. This Review of African Political Economy Reader provides a timely, comprehensive and critical contribution to contemporary debates about conflict and security on the continent. The first section, covers some of the continent's main post-Cold War conflicts and demonstrates their global connections. The articles also discuss the so-called 'resource curse', as well as the global arms trade, and reveal the complexities of the relationship between the economic and the political. The second section focuses on security as part of post-Cold War global governance, and discusses the effects of liberal peace-building as well as the link between development assistance and the 'war on terror'. The final section examines life as it continues in conditions of war and shows how insecurity reconfigures urban space, transforms social order, identities and authority. ISBN:9781847010780 Author:Rita Abrahamsen

Brief Summary Be warned not to miss your lunch or flight because the story is so enthralling that when you open the book it becomes hard to close it until you complete it! And we are sure you will read the book again and again! The fiction blend with facts in this book makes it the only book of its kind in the world for the world! But in essence, it is a truth and accountability quest of a person who survived a terrorist attack because of a flat tyre that delayed him to the venue of the 7/11/2010 Kampala bombings. This attack was handiwork of Al-Qaeda linked Al-shabaab group. Like it is with most attacks, the leaders of the terrorists celebrated the attack and called their suicide bombers martyrs! This attitude of terrorists lived to confront Francis Tucungwirwe’s conscience as a survivor-Imagine somebody attacks and kills people and believes that in front of his God, he will be a martyr; that he will be rewarded with prizes and will be welcomed by angels after his death. But is this true? The book seeks for some actual answers and accountability through an alien process in some Africa societies called Rutangaaza that was used to hold the dead accountable or consult them. The main episode in the book is the Rutangaaza Global Peace Conference. Where some answers and accountability are derived and felt when one sees Osama bin Laden expressing apology to the world for his terror deeds and for misrepresenting Islam. And you see him crying and promising that if he got chance to come back on earth he would be a leading demobiliser of terrorists in the world. But also some moments at the conference piss you off like when you see him (Osama bin Laden) saying that he misses his family especially his mother and children then you ask yourself where were these feelings when he was executing plots to kill people in masses. And indeed at the conference some participants heckled at him and when you as the reader you are about to burst with questions for him and possibly contemplating to attack him at the conference screen, then he tells you that terrorism ideology and propaganda is powerful because it deludes people of such normal feelings and makes them objects of terror. Then when you analyse his response you realize that the world could have spent over $ 5 trillion since 9/11 fighting terrorists yet the problem is terrorism- indeed it is a fact that you can shoot a terrorist and kill him like Osama bin Laden but miss terrorism. So what can we do to shoot terrorism? Osama bin Laden, 9/11 victims and the global delegates made suggestions to the world. Indeed the Rutangaaza conference ends well with a communiqué from the 9/11 victims, Osama bin Laden and the global witnesses. In the end you realize this is a book that could end terrorists and terrorism and save the world billions of dollars that are spent on terror related wars every year. Finally If you have lost a loved one like the 9/11 victim families or any other person in the world has who lost loved ones to terrorists, at the glance of this title you probably feel like no this book is an insult to me-how can the killer of my loved one meet them like in case of 9/11 families, but when you realise the fact that the author of the book was meters away to a devastating terrorist attack of Al-Qaeda mentored Al-shabaab then you are comforted that you are in safe hands because the writer took care of any emotions and ethics relating to terrorist victims and their families in the book. ISBN:9789970994106 Author:Francis Tucungwirwe