Swaziland

Firoze Manji of Pambazuka News appeared on The Real News Network to talk about the uprisings in southern Africa. He highlighted uprisings in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon and Swaziland and also suggested uprisings are brewing in Kenya and South Africa.

WL Central has been keeping a close eye on many of these uprisings and how they have been brutally suppressed.

Manji explains why people in Africa are revolting:

The reason why this is happening is that everyone shares the experience of the Egyptians and the Tunisians. Yes, the focus has been on getting rid of dictators, but the real common thing that everyone faces has been thirty years of structural adjustment programs (SAPs), thirty years where all social services have been privatized, thirty years where there has been massive accumulation by dispossession. You have the peasantry losing land. You have people migrating to the cities. You have a huge decline in income.

Manji notes the issue of "political dispossession" saying unfortunately governments today are more inclined to listen to the IMF, the World Bank and international aid agencies than they are citizens. He adds "percolating discontent” has not been at this level since the anti-colonial revolutions of the 1950s.