Bücher von Tatah Mentan

Human beings indeed need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is the axis of evil and devastation of mankind. Terrorism on Africa has been a ubiquitous presence against which the democratic values of African civilization are ranged-a demon to be exorcised at all costs, even at the cost of civil liberties. However, the deliberate use of the term terrorism in recent decades was carefully selected, mainly, against a certain religion (Islam). The idea was then globally politicized by the Western world. Leaving that scholarly view in its own right, this study disagrees with the opinion raising terrorism as the devil's just-born child of evil, when in reality Africans had been terrorized for centuries as slaves and human chattel, colonies, neo-colonies and captives of globalism. Terrorism on Africa has been the global threat against which global war must now be fought. It should have never taken place anyway! Whether the terrorizing country was peaceful or violent, no country should be granted the right to seize and restrict the development of a region. Europeans have crippled the rich native African civilizations for their own political and economic gain for centuries. No matter the reason, no intelligence, knowledge, or technology permits one country or countries to terrorize another or other countries like the terrorized and victimized in Africa. Africans must disable and counter propaganda and information operations. We must address known causal factors by strengthening vulnerable populations and improving their ability to identify, characterize, attribute, and defend against terror networks and threats. Our counter-terrorism architectures and capabilities will need to be more agile and more integrated. Mankind needs a common strategy. Understanding this complex terrorist environment will require mature global networks and effective links with interagency teammates and partner nations-allowing rapid synchronization of information across agency, regional, national, and international boundaries in order to dismantle the sustained multi-faceted terrorism on Africa.

Saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war was the main motivation for creating the United Nations. Given the ongoing conflicts, wars and terrorist attacks today one is forced to ask: Is there Hope for International Peace and Security? Where have the safeguards gone to? Has the United Nations become powerless in the face of absence of the "safeguards"? In this book, Professor Tatah Mentan examines the transformation in UN peace and security operations, analysing its changing role and structure. Tatah Mentan argues that the enemy of peace and security in the global system is the dictatorship of predatory bailed out monopoly capitalism that tells us that building war ships is more important than building alternate energy infrastructure. The real enemies are therefore the publicly bailed-out monopolies, Big Media, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc. that deny the truth about conflicts and insecurity. As he emphasises, the enemies are those who refuse to think critically, not being intellectually curious, and accepting the supremacist, fascist, and misgovernance that is reducing the world collectively to being cogs in a diabolical machine of neoliberal global capitalism.

The celebrations that heralded democratic change in the 1990s in Africa have gradually faded into muffled cries of anger and attendant violence of despair. Almost everywhere on the continent so-called democratic leaders are openly subverting the people's will and disregarding national constitutions. Ordinary people find themselves removed from the centres of power, marginalized and reduced to helpless and hopeless onlookers as political leaders, their friends and families noisily enjoy the spoils of impunity. From Nigeria to Zimbabwe, Kenya to the Ivory Coast and Uganda to Cameroon, the writing is on the wall. The experiment with democracy has blatantly taken a dangerous nosedive. There is a crisis of honest, committed and democratic leadership, in spite of the advancements in education and intellectualism of the populace, and despite the influences of globalization and new understandings of governance. In this brief volume, Tatah Mentan makes an incisive diagnosis of how the "security forces" brutally crush protests against bids to stay in power through corrupt electoral practices as well as how opposition voices have been hunted down and crushed or intimidated into graveyard silence. This is a clarion call for Africans to embrace the values of People Power in synch with the dictates of the current global imperatives. There is no place for visionless leadership. Africans need to raise their voices to recapture their freedom.