Leo Africanus is taking a break till after the New Year. I hope to be back after January 8, which is by the way also the occasion of the annual public statement by the President of South Africa‘s ruling African National Congress, but also the birthday of David Bowie. Of course neither event has anything [...]
Archive for December, 2007
Haitus
Posted in Leo Africanus, Haitus on December 21, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Politricks
Posted in Jacob Zuma, policies, South Africa on December 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Jacob Zuma is scheduled to make his first speech as ANC President today. My sense is he won’t say much that carries weight, except maybe congratulate himself and his ‘camp,’ play up unity within the party and make vague criticisms of Thabo Mbeki. But I could be wrong from where I sit. On the topic [...]
How radical is Jacob Zuma really?
Posted in Jacob Zuma, South Africa on December 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The conventional wisdom on Jacob Zuma’s successful ‘campaign’ for the ANC presidency was that he is a radical. That he had strong support from the trade union and communist allies of the ANC was offered as prove. Now this comment from a story in this morning’s New York Times: One veteran analyst of South African [...]
Siddhartha Deb on J M Coetzee
Posted in J M Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K, South Africa on December 19, 2007 | 2 Comments »
‘In 2002, J. M. Coetzee moved from South Africa to Australia, exchanging one white colony for another, leaving behind the fractious, brutal, and failed project of apartheid for citizenship in a democratic state far more successful at dispossessing its indigenous people. Coetzee has lived in places other than South Africa before, notably England and the [...]
Kenyan democracy
Posted in Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, National Public Radio, Presidency on December 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
With South Africa’s ruling party having dumped its leader, now on to the Kenyan elections where the incumbent — the ‘reformer’ Mwai Kibaki — could also be without a job by the end of this year (elections are scheduled for December 27, 2007). At least 9 candidates are running, but it is really a 2-person [...]
‘It’s hard to stand up for the oppressed while riding in a limousine’
Posted in Jacob Zuma, post-1994 South Africa, profile, South Africa on December 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Chris McGreal in the UK Guardian on the bling of the new leadership of South Africa’s ruling party new leadership: Jacob Zuma crushed [Thabo Mbeki] by playing on the widespread sense of injustice among the poor, represented by ANC officials who arrived at the conference in old buses. That Zuma himself has a very big, [...]
Who is Jacob Zuma? What can we expect from him?
Posted in Jacob Zuma, profile, South Africa on December 18, 2007 | 2 Comments »
So I wrote yesterday that I won’t blog about the African National Congress’ conference ’till it’s over.’ Well, now that Jacob Zuma has soundly defeated Thabo Mbeki to become ANC President, the conference is effectively over. Unless Zuma goes to prison because of long-standing corruption charges (his legal team has used all kinds of delays [...]
St. Claire Bourne
Posted in film, New York City, obituaries on December 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The accclaimed documentary filmmaker St. Claire Bourne — he directed film portraits of Paul Robeson, Gordon Parks, Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka (I was fortunate to see Bourne and Baraka discuss the film during the Afro-Punk film and music festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music) — has passed away. For an obituary see here [...]
Jacob Zuma’s Umshini Wam*
Posted in Jacob Zuma, National Conference, nationalism, Polokwane, post-1994 South Africa, postapartheid, South Africa on December 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
So South Africa’s African National Congress is meeting in Polokwane, the capital of Limpopo province till Thursday, December 20th, for its national conference. Not surprisingly policy differences are not dominating the conference, but rather the bitter public contest over who will lead the organization (after this conference) and the country (whoever becomes party president will [...]
The Heart of Greed
Posted in Nigeria, Roben Farzad on December 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Africa needs Cecil John Rhodes-types (and Western educated elites) to ‘save’ itself. That’s the gist of a piece last month in Business Week by reporter Roben Farzad last month. See for yourself here. You can also see Farzad do a slideshow about his visit to Nigeria and investment opportunities there.
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