Friends of Europe, a leading European think-tank that aims to stimulate thinking on the future of the EU, invited me to contribute to Debating Europe, a platform where policy makers and experts respond to questions from the public. Below are clips with my responses to the three questions that I was asked. They’re about a minute each. In a…
Archives for August 2015
Mutuality – the answer for women and men who want peace
I loved this Guardian feature on Mia Couto, the Mozambican writer who was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Award this year. Speaking of Mozambique, he said the following: “It’s a very patriarchal society, with high levels of violence against women. Women are ‘eaten’ by their society and by life itself.” I find the metaphor…
When Obama addressed the African Onion
In his sales pitch aka his “address to the African Union” last week, US president Barack Obama gave Africans a worse deal than Amazon.com, Inc. gives book publishers on any given day. Obama’s pitch was pally, persuasive and punchy as any skilled salesperson’s. Terms like ‘partnership’, ‘development’, ‘co-operation’ and ‘opportunity’ were abundantly used. But make no mistake, its intention was…