My desktop tabs are getting cluttered, so it’s time for a links dump, with brief commentary as applicable:
One of the most noxious tendencies in American politics is that conservatives have managed to turn the charge of racism into an offense as terrible as actual racism, which of course provides cover for all sorts of racist practices, policies, and attitudes. A type of white South African is pretty good at this trick as well. Thus spokesperson Pieter Mulder for the far-right wing Freedom Front Plus can accuse Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu of creating “racial tension” because of her assertion that South Africa’s courts are racist based on disparate sentencing trends. Sotyu’s assertions are certainly debatable, of course, but Freedom Front Plus trying to pull out the race card does not seem to me like a winning play, except of course among the party’s constituency, which still hopes for the separate Afrikaner republic of Orania to emerge out of the veld. So, you know, QED.
Angola is celebrating its 35th anniversary of independence. Most of those 35 years were marked by a terrible civil war, but with the war in the rear-view mirror, and with oil gushing, these are among the most hopeful days in the country’s history.
The love-hate relationship between the ANC and COSATU continues apace in South Africa, as one day they say nasty things about one another and two days later proclaim their mutual interdependence. (And don’t forget the Youth League!)
Beyond some fetishization of primitivism, this New York Times article does a reasonably good job of revealing the plight of the Bushmen in contemporary Botswana. It really breaks down to tensions over modernism and balancing the needs of various conflicting parties and their competing interests. In other words, politics.
South African History Online has a nice feature on the history of South Africa in the Olympics.
World Affairs journal has a solid feature on Liberia’s Iron Lady, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (who recently dismissed the bulk of her cabinet).
Hidden beneath the country’s divisive and tenuous political situation is the fact that Kenya is setting itself up as the continent’s leader in addressing climate change. Actually the very tragedy of Kenya’s fraught political climate is that the country could lead Africa in so many ways, and perhaps will if the new constitution allows the country to move forward politically.
Uh oh. Increasingly the counting of votes in Guinea is leading to recrimination. And where there is recrimination violence tends not to loom too far in the distance.
Speaking of elections in divided countries, Ivory Coast gears up for its runoff. Here is a roundup of press coverage following the first stage of the election.
