From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

Those who are of my age will vividly recall the age of the ‘maxam’. This was the era when the shelves of the then RTCs or Regional Trading Companies and other ‘dukas’ had nothing, literally nothing.

There was nothing to buy from the many public and few private shops in the urban and rural areas of the country. Actually whenever there were any little amounts of flour, sugar or rice in the shops, one had to get a special permit – kibali – to get an allocation of the same to buy for his family.

I do recall how I actually bought my first Radio Cassette Recorder. I was then a young journalist with the Daily News in Dar es Salaam and as part of the privileges of a scribe you get to know some strategically positioned individuals in society. One of these individuals was Kapinga, the then General Manager of DABCO, a company which traded in among other items, electronic gadgets.

He easily issued a special ‘kibali’ for me to buy a Phillips Radio cassette. I went and bought one but, can you imagine that I never reached with my prized item home. As soon as I walked out of the DABCO shop, along then Independence Avenue, I was mobbed by scores of craving Dar es Salaamites, who all wanted my item. Naturally I sold it to the highest bidder. That evening I was the darling of all my friends at the Bonga NikuBonge Bar in Mwananyamala. And that is where my Radio Cassette dreams were buried.

In efforts to alleviate these acute shortages of almost everything, the authorities of the time decided to turn east and appeal to the Chinese. That is when the market got flooded with Chinese products. ‘Maxam’ the toothpaste, was the flagstaff of them all. All of a sudden all the shops in the country were full of ‘maxam’ toothpaste, ‘maxam’ soap, ‘maxam’ lotion and many other ‘maxam’ products.

I do remember when, one time my guardian angel smiled at me, and I chanced to come into possession of three tubes of ‘Colgate’ toothpaste and several ‘Rexona’ bathing soap pieces. I suddenly became a sensation, and actually very attractive to the ‘sisters’ of the time. This sudden stardom evaporated soon after they relieved me of my prized possessions. In no time I was back to my Chinese ‘maxam’ life.

Somehow the Chinese and their products disappeared for many years after that. But now they are back and with a vengeance. They are everywhere. They are building our highways, our cloud-licking structures, running restaurants and even selling items from small shops in Kariakoo. There are Chinese shoes, clothes, liquors, medicine and even chemicals to, I am told, even enable our sisters grow some voluminous bottoms. Somehow, though, I have to admit, I have never come across a huge bottomed Chinese lady.

I thought this was only happening to Tanzania. No! The same is taking place all over Africa. The other day, as I flew Air Malawi to Blantyre, I was worried I had entered a flight to Beijing. It was full of Chinese people. On enquiry I was told all those were small businessmen who run small shops in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Zomba in Malawi.

In Zambia, I read the other day, if you are going to buy some chicken for your evening ‘nsima’ – ugali – and you enter the Lusaka city’s main market, chances are you will do so from a Chinese run stall.

Writes Justin Rowlatt, “As you push your way through the crowds, the hawkers and traders will shout and cajole, offering you every product imaginable. You will probably not see a single non-African there. Until, that is, you get to where the chickens are sold. Here you will see a row of trucks piled high with cages, each packed with plump white chickens all fussing and squawking. The African shoppers will be weighing the birds in their hands and looking their prospective purchases in the eye.

In the background you might spot the owners of the trucks – Chinese men and women holding wads of money and making sure things go smoothly.” These Chinese men and women are chicken farmers in Zambia. They have travelled more than 11,000 kms from their homes to do just that. No wonder even the Americans and the Europeans are wary of the Chinese. It seems the Chinese are here!

Despite the efforts of organizations around the world, human beings continue to hunt animals into extinction. Whether it be for simple vanity, supposed medical benefits, or the desire for an exotic pet, the illegal animal trade is alive and well. It seems to have forever been in our nature to pillage nature, and those we share the world with have suffered much abuse as a result. Amazingly, more than 13 million live animals and over 30 million animal parts were illegally exported from Southeast Asia over the last decade. The top five exporting countries are Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, and have been for years.

And where is the greatest market demand for such products? The United States, Japan, Italy, Mexico and Singapore make up the top five importers, but the USA’s market demand dwarfs all others.  America’s appetite for exotic animals, dead and alive, makes up a staggering 80% of what the top five countries import and is 10 times more than the entire planet combined.  

Tigers, elephant tusks, stony corals, monitor Lizards, pythons, crocodiles and a wide variety of birds and butterflies are amongst the top traded animals. Female orangutans are shot dead and their young are taken to sell as pets, thousands of Vietnamese Black Bears have been killed for Chinese medicine demands and are now nearly extinct, and the list goes on from here.

An insatiable appetite for traditional medicines, exotic pets, and even culinary delicacies drive the multi-billion dollar business – legal and illegal – is slowly emptying our forests, fields, jungles and oceans. If patterns remian unchanged, dozens of animals will become exitinct.

Tigers are especially valuable on the black market. Wealthy collectors display their heads, outlandish restaurants sell their meat, and the Chinese covet their bones for health cures, including tiger bone wine. Reptiles are also a booming sector of the market. Recently 14 tons of turtles, Monitor Lizards and Pangolins were found in a boat off the coast of China. The thirst for such products is strong and there are those out there are doing their very best to quench it. 

One cause for hope may be the establishment of a regional organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN). The organization brings together custom agents, wildlife officers, prosecutors, and police from ten countries in the region. Aussies, Americans and Kiwis are also taking part, with much of the funding coming from the United States.

In the end, the best way to combat the illegal trade of animals is to reach out to the consumers who drive up the demands of the market. The only reason poachers are so willing to track down and kill wildlife is that there is great payment for their effort. People around the world need to stop buying these products, most especially those in North America.

Less demand equals less animals tortured, killed and hunted into extinction. It seems the least we can do.

From David Anthony Hohol…

China, heralded by some as a rising superpower, is never of want to be in the worldwide spotlight, and recent news has been no exception:  censorship issues surrounding Google and an arguably fixed-rate currency have been prominent topics within the last week.  Surrounding these talking points was the relevant issue of international business inside China and its surrounding problems.

The fundamental issue in US-China business relations is the absolute difference of economy:  free-market vs. controlled market.  Businesses inside America operate largely without government interference, excepting certain industry regulation, and the market operates essentially as a capitalistic free-for-all.  China, however, only pretends to have a capitalist market within a communist environment, issuing pronouncements, instituting intervention policies, and awarding preferential treatment to certain native corporations.

Censorship within China is not new, and has only become recently intriguing due to the fact that a company, Google, chose to end their participation in the subjugation of that nation’s people instead of acquiescing like so many other business enterprises.  It is this principle of government-mandated information flow, in combination with influenced markets, that presents a worrisome problem to the world-at-large: one of the most populous nations in the world continues to believe they can augment reality, fairness, and opinions by simply demanding subservience.

A nation that is to have great international influence should be one with politics and policies amenable to the rest of the world – a fact that China simply fails to understand.  Attempting to be the center of all that is business requires a certain acceptance of reality and outside influence, which seems to point to China simply not becoming the superpower that they, and some critics, believe is inevitable.  Communist Russia, at the height of its imperialist period, was simply incompatible with much of the Western World, and the People’s Republic of China is no different in this regard.

World business leaders should refuse to trade within China’s borders until censorship is abolished, and a slew of other communist controls are relaxed.  In the knowledge, however, that this is highly improbable, it’s far better to understand that the rise of the Red Nation will be substantially hampered, if not prevented entirely, by their insistence on lies, deceit, tradition, and subjugation.  The China Problem, while wholly internal, will have a great effect on the coming decade, and it does not bode well for the overall future of a worldwide economy.

From Kyle Brady…

Kyle can be found on his blog, on Facebook, via email, or on Twitter.

AP Photo

Tibet’s struggle for independence has long captured the imagination and support of the Western World. Very few people however are even aware of the Uygur people’s struggle for survival, which in many ways is far more critical. Made up of Turkic speaking, Central Asian and mostly Muslim people, the Xinjiang Uygur Auton­omous Region is their ancestral homeland. Located in Western China, the entire area lies at the one time center of the known world and is rich with the Technicolor fabric of our kaleidoscopic human history. Missionaries, monks, merchants and traders from every corner of the planet passed through with regularity. Muslim pilgrims, Buddhist holy men, Marco Polo and even Genghis Khan have cast their footprints in Xinjiang’s soil, the one time crossroads of all humanity.

Situated in an area rich with much needed natural resources, the Uygur are fast becoming outsiders to what has been the epicenter of their very cultural being for centuries. Han Chinese are slowly pouring in to take advantage of the readily available resources and at times they are doing so aggressively. Xinjiang is fast becoming China’s second Tibet in the process.

The Uygurs are witnessing the slow eradication of their culture in the name of progress. Once the vast majority, they now make up approximately half the population. Few hold good jobs as they slowly are being pushed out of the oil rich city. A recent study by the U.S. government said 800 of 840 civil service job openings were reserved for Han Chinese. Why? China’s communist government requires all government employees renounce their religion. That and they simply do not want to see their history sacrificed in the name of development.   

To make matters worse, long standing historical world heritage sites are being torn down to make space for new real estate developments. Gambling and prostitution have quickly moved in and as the pro-atheist Chinese government have even put restrictions on worship at mosques.

The culture clash has slowly begun to turn to violence. Uygyrs shopkeepers are having their businesses vandalized and some have been threatened with arson. The Uygurs are a proud people and have begun to fight back, challenging the Han and police forces in the process. More than 200 people were killed in ethic clashing and more recently, riots resulted in more than 800 deaths in some of the deadliest protests since Tienanmen Square. The military has since taken to the streets by the tens of thousands to restore order. Amnesty International and human right watch groups are disturbed by the forced assimilation of the Uygyrs by the Han Chinese. China is made of of 56 Ethic groups, with more than 90% being Han.

Tibet, Palestine, Sudan – the world is filled with stories like this and unfortunately the ending is rarely a happy one. Once again what we were, a magnanimous piece of our collective past, is about to be sacrificed upon on the altar of greed, hegemony and progress. When will we ever learn?

From David Anthony Hohol…