If's a busy news cycle right now in Southern Africa. here are a number of stories that caught my eye in today's chock-full Mail & Guardian and elsewhere:
As the thirteith anniversary of the murder of Steven Bantu Biko at the hands of the security forces approaches different South Africans remember Biko's life and death differently.
the Zimbabwe crisis continues unabated. The economic calamity has opened the door for corruption. Some maintain hopes that South African-brokered talked will lead to a resolution of the political elements of the country's conflicts, but it seems that this may not be the time for whistling past the graveyard.
Meanwhile, transformation isn't always easy. Members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) are up in arms over the Tshwane metropolitan council's reported ban on white businesses. If the allegations are accurate, the DA would certainly seem to have a case that they will bring before the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile in a pronouncement that is likely to be equally tendentious, the Black Management Forum (BMF) has argued that white women should be removed from the list of groups previously disadvantaged “in terms of . . . employment equity legislation.” It is a bit hard for white women who benefitted in every imaginable way from apartheid suddenly stepping forward to claim their lots alongside the black South Africans on whose backs the Apartheid system built white privilege.
Finally, the M&G's longtime rugby columnist Andrew Capostagno has a nifty piece on how this Rugby World Cup represents a “big chance” for the Springboks. He concludes his historically astute article by arguing that if the Boks achieve their considerable promise and “Win this one” South Africans “can forget, for a long, glorious moment, about politics.”
