Culture

Published February 22, 2012 | By admin

Actually, there is no single culture in South Africa. It is ethnically so diverse, that you will discover vast and exciting cultural differences when you visit our country.No wonder that South Africa’s is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation. Our rainbow of cultures has to be lived, it has to be felt, the rainbow rhythm of Africa.

From modern art galleries to ancient rock art sites, from museums to cultural villages, from jazz clubs to open air festivals.Take the ancient culture of the San and Khoi people and their ancestor’s heritage of rock and cave paintings, believed to date back thousands of years. culture in South Africa

Together with the cultures of the four main black ethnic groups, the Sotho people (North Sotho, South Sotho and Tswana), the Nguni people, (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele), the Shangaan-Tsonga and the Venda people, each one having its own repertoire of myths, legends, traditions and history,…

And the cultures of the Afrikaner (Dutch origin) and English settlers, the Coloured people, the Indians and other migrants from Africa, Asia and Europe.Put them all together, united by a sincere desire to see to it that the horrors and injustices of apartheid never happen again. culture in South Africa

Add a measure of the African Ubuntu philosophy “Mothoke motho ka batho ba bang” meaning “A person is a person through other people” or “I am because we are “. People are what they are through other people” and therefore they need each other and have to work together.

And see, from this kaleidoscope of cultures, something new is being born. A dynamic blending of age-old customs and modern ways, a mix of cultures and a cross-pollination of ideas, words, customs and art forms as well as of culinary and religious practices.Yes, you are standing at the cradle of South Africa’s very own Rainbow Culture. Do not miss it. Come and explore our cultural richness. culture in South Africa

Boko Haram And US Plans In Africa

Published January 10, 2012 | By admin

African

ABUJA, Nigeria, Jan. 9 (UPI) — Oil-rich Nigeria is gripped by an escalating uprising by Islamist militants that has triggered massacres of Christians, including a Christmas Day suicide bombing blitz, which the federal government seems unable to contain.

Amid deepening suspicions the Islamists are aided by al-Qaida’s North African wing, which has been extending its operations southward of late, there are fears the bloodletting could plunge Africa’s most populous state into a sectarian civil war.Nigeria is a major oil producer that provides 8 percent of U.S. crude imports and there are signs that Washington is growing concerned about the swelling crisis there.

In October, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to take action against the main Nigerian Islamist group, Boko Haram, which until a few months ago was widely seen as a northeastern Nigerian sect primarily concerned with domestic issues.But as the group, whose name translates as “Western education is a sin,” has escalated its religious war from drive-by shootings and killing Christians to more sophisticated operations and suicide bombings, it has evolved into a serious threat to Nigeria’s stability.

Formed in the 1990s, the group demanded Islamic Sharia law to be introduced into northern Nigeria, which is predominantly Muslim. But in recent years it has repeatedly clashed with Nigeria’s Christians in the central region where the two religions collide.Nigeria’s population of 150 million is roughly split evenly between the two faiths.

But the country’s oil wealth is in the Christian-dominated south and little has reached the long-neglected north, which has fanned regional resentment.Boko Haram’s growing expertise in terrorist attacks, in which hundreds of people have been killed, has deepened suspicions it has developed links with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the jihadists’ North African arm.

In November, it was disclosed that the U.S. Army has sent 100 Special Forces soldiers to Nigeria to provide counter-insurgency training for national troops engaged against Boko Haram, the country’s largest military deployment since the 1967-70 Biafra war.This opened up a new front in the U.S. administration’s shadow war in Africa, where U.S. Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency are engaged in countering jihadist groups in the north and east, particularly Somalia.

On Nov. 30, the U.S. House of Representatives’ subcommittee on counter-terrorism and intelligence identified Boko Haram as an “emerging threat” to the United States and its interests and called for greater interaction with Nigerian security forces.