I will be in Washington D.C. next Tuesday night, April 28, as part of a panel with Thabo Mbeki’s biographer, Mark Gevisser, and political scientist Ronald Walters, to analyze the results and meaning of a pending Zuma administration.
If you’re in the US capital, here are the details:
Africa Action and The Department of African Studies (Howard University), the Department of Sociology (George Washington University) and TransAfrica Forum
PRESENTS
“The Future of the South African Dream: Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma and the April 2009 Elections”
Presentation and discussion featuring:
Mark Gevisser
One of South Africa’s foremost journalists. His latest book, Thabo Mbeki: the Dream Deferred, won the Sunday Times Alan Paton award in 2008. Palgrave Macmillan is publishing the American edition, which will be on sale at the discussion.
Sean Jacobs
Teaches African Studies and Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. He is a frequent commentator on South African affairs and is co-editor of Thabo Mbeki’s World: The Politics and Ideology of the South African President (2002).
Ronald Walters
Professor of government and politics and director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland. He is one of the most prominent analysts on African American politics. He has a long record of involvement in South African issues, dating back to his activism in the anti-apartheid movement. Among his books are Pan Africanism in the African Diaspora (1993) and The Price of Reconciliation (2008).
Tuesday, April 28 2009
6:30PM – 8:30 PM
At Howard University, Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center
2218 Sixth Street NW. Washington, DC. 20059
Admission free – All are welcome!
Please confirm your attendance at outreach@africaaction.org; 2025467961
UPDATE: This event has been canceled. Mark Gevisser’s father has passed away.
I want to be there sean i will drop sum pics from the election for u
Wish I could be there. Very interesting group of panelists. This event may move the discussion of Jacob Zuma and South Africa beyond the”here comes the monster and now South Africa is doomed” litany. Zuma is a deeply flawed man no question about it, but he is by no means this one dimensional figure who somehow has duped South Africans into voting him into power. South Africans aren’t that stupid and Zuma is a much more complex figure whose considerable capabilities have been overshadowed by the tawdriness of his actions. On a recent interview with the Australian program Dateline, it was interesting to hear Allister Sparks having to grudgingly admit that Zuma’s moral flaws will most likely not hamper his ability to be an effective president.