The Monday Myriad

Here are a bunch of stories to start off your week:

David Smith of The Mail & Guardian argues that District 9 represents the first in what we can expect to be a stream of post-Apartheid movies. Because of my own interest both in the negotiation process that led to the end of Apartheid and in rugby, and the fact that i am working on a project on rugby, race, and nationalism in the “new South Africa,” I am especially interested in (and somewhat wary of) Invictus, which will bring an adapted version of John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy to the big screen, with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in key roles. (Freeman will be playing Nelson Mandela in what will surely be Oscar bait.)

The three most prominent candidates in Gabon’s presidential election are claiming victory. Official results are unknown. Buckle your seatbelts in anticipation of turbulence.

In this lengthy review essay on Sudan and Darfur New Republic editor Richard Just gives Mahmood Mamdani a much-needed intellectual throttling.

Jacob Zuma has weighed in on the main conflict in the Middle East without managing actually to say anything. And The New York Times praises South Africa’s progress on public health and especially on AIDS policy.

The Springboks continue to cruise in the Tri-Nations, and to my mind, their victory over Australia this weekend finally showed them playing the best kind of rugby, a flourishing, try-scoring, open field, run-oriented game. But the Boks need to finish off strong in the two remaining games.