This past weekend the Financial Times gave some space to analyzing Morgan Tsvangirai, the probable next President of Zimbabwe.
The writer predictably is none other than Alec Russell, their man in Africa. The piece is fairly standard, no surprises, except — and I am not suggesting anything — strangely too much reference to body odor, ‘skin’ and soap:
The smell of unwashed bodies hung in the air.
or this sign of being ‘comfortable in his own skin’:
His political skills are indisputable. He has that invaluable asset of appearing comfortable in his own skin. His banter electrified crowds at rallies in the heartland of his fellow Shonas (Zimbabwe’s majority tribe). “Some of you who are dark,” he told crowd after crowd, “it’s not because you are dark but because you have no money for soap.” In a country where inflation is up to 400,000 per cent and few can afford a bus fare let alone soap, the line went down a storm.
I may be saying nothing here or I am just saying. [This is after all the same reporter who referred to Jacob Zuma, the probable next President of South Africa as ‘… an old fashioned chief.‘
I know where the pic with the airplane was taken… Was there just last week.