[liberationtech] Sahel Spring

[keitamh at gmail.com]

Dear Richard:

I appreciate your putting Burkina on the radar of the community, especially
given that most Americans would not be able to place the country on a map.
That said, Interestingly enough, on Thursday and for a brief period of
time, Burkina Faso was surprisingly a trending topic on Twitter
<https://twitter.com/M0Keita/status/644539764243361792> in the United
States!

If I may make one important observation: I would not use the term "Sahel
Spring" to describe what's happening with protesters now. The term itself
is problematic in the African context for a number of reasons, which I
explained in this article
<http://africasacountry.com/2014/11/how-not-to-write-about-africa-use-african-spring/>
I wrote last year.

Thanks.

best,
Mo Keita
Contributing writer, Quartz Africa & True Africa
@M0Keita <https://twitter.com/M0Keita>

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Richard Brooks <rrb at g.clemson.edu> wrote:

> As a recap, about 1 year ago a popular uprising called Balai Citoyen:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Balai_Citoyen
>
> started by rappers and tech activists in Ouagadougou got
> a lot of the population in the street to protest moves
> by the President to prolong his 27 years in office.
>
> Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso.
>
> The military eventually asked the President to leave, and
> a transition government was put in place. Elections were
> planned for mid-October.
>
> Yesterday, the presidential guard held the interim government
> hostage and called off the elections. People close to the
> ex-President are leading this action by part of the military.
> Latest news:
>
>
> http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/17/uk-burkina-army-idUKKCN0RG28S20150917
>
> The studio of one of Balai Citoyen's founders was under attack.
> There is a curfew. Some dead protesters. Dozens wounded.
>
> Calls for more protests.
>
> Note that the Sahel Spring in Burkina Faso lead to a number of
> protest movements in Subsaharan Africa. Their actions lead to
> hope of democratic change.
>
> The question is whether the combination of rappers and tech
> activists can mobilize a large enough response to repel
> this attack.
> --
> Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations
> of list guidelines will get you moderated:
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech.
> Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at
> companys at stanford.edu.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/attachments/20150918/602dcf4a/attachment.html>