Remembering the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa

Byalmariam

South Africa, 1960 On March 21, 1960, exactly 55 years ago today, a crowd estimated at five thousand (according to apartheid police 20 thousand, inflated to justify their extreme response) gathered in front of a police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in Transvaal (presently Gauteng, one of the nine provinces of South…

The Moral Equivalent of an Anti-Apartheid Movement in Ethiopia?

Byalmariam

Ethiopian Muslims engaged in the moral equivalent of an anti-Apartheid movement? In her recent commentary in the New York Review of Books, “Obama: Failing the African Spring?”, Dr. Helen Epstein questioned the Obama Administration for turning a blind eye to human rights violations in Africa, and particularly the persecution of Muslims in Ethiopia. She argued…