Not everyone shares the general belief that president Bush deserves some credit for his Africa policies. Josh Kurlantznick is decidedly unimpressed with the President's approach toward Africa, as he shows in this piece at The New Republic. Here is a sample: Rather than supporting democratic institutions and criticizing a new generation of African authoritarians, the […]
My apologies for the light posting this week. I’ve been down and out with a nasty case of the flu for the last few days. Things will pick back up as I recover from my current zombie status. In the meantime, you should read this piece on President Bush's trip to Africa by the Foreign […]
The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful primer on American policies toward the five countries President Bush is visiting this week. I am going to make a controversial assertion: Although President Bush has, by just about any measure, been a pretty bad president, he ranks among the upper echelons in terms of policy toward […]
Periodically you’ll hear the whispering: FIFA is displeased with South Africa's progress in preparing to host the World Cup in 2010. Every sign of “political instability” (which is a patronizing way of referring to political division, which every vibrant democracy has) or possible internal conflicts in the organizing effort sends the FIFA overlords and Afro-pessimists […]
The Economist this past week had a correspondent keeping a diary based on experiences in Kenya. The week's entries are, by definition, episodic, but provide some context for daily life amidst the political and social chaos that has emerged.
There is lots going on these days across the continent, so without further palaver, I’ll point you in the right directions to catch up. Your first stop should probably be the latest Pambazuka News, which has useful articles on Chad, Zimbabwe, lots on Kenya, and other important issues. From there you can go to the […]
The sun will rise, the sun will set, and South African sport will exist in a perpetual case of turmoil. Or so it seems. Winning the Rugby World Cup last year does not seem to have provided a balm to SARU's (usually self-inflicted) wounds and in many ways seems to have rubbed them raw. Even […]
My initial response to this article asserting that Simba Makoni has quite a challenge ahead of him was to wonder what sort of moron might argue anything to the contrary. Fortunately, though, the reporter goes deeper than the “no tea party” argument: Makoni's real challenge is to show he has the clout to attract enough […]
Kofi Annan seems optimistic that he can broker agreements in Kenya that will allow for that country to begin to heal. One of the key elements to any solution appears to be the establishment of a coalition government that will sit until the country can hold new elections, which would probably not take place until […]
Charles R. Stith, a former US ambassador to Tanzania and director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University, has an op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe endorsing the Millennium Challenge Initiative as a way to help develop Africa. He argues that partisan squabbling over the amount of funding to provide the […]
There can be little doubt that the past year has been the most trying in Thabo Mbeki's oft-tumultuous presidency. Tonight he gave his State of the Union address before parliament. He certainly had plenty of fodder from which to work: The electricity crisis, crime, poverty, the daunting prospect of hosting the 2010 World Cup, and […]
Take your pick on Kenya: Grim pessimism or cautious optimism? By my nature I try to steer clear of Afro-pessimism, so I’ll side with the latter, well aware that the former always has a case to make in contemporary Africa.
Robert Mugabe is going to face a surprise challenge in the upcoming election that he called recently (to great outcry from the opposition and observers of the country's politics). Simba Makoni, a former finance minister whom Mugabe forced out of office in 2002, appears to have the support of many dissidents within ZANU-PF as well […]
The Chronicle Review of the Chronicle of Higher Education has a lengthy feature on Chinua Achebe and his now fifty-year-old classic Things Fall Apart.
Is there hope for an abatement of political violence in Kenya's ongoing crisis? Despite more deaths in clashes between protesters and police, allegations of banditry, and fears of ethnic cleansing, guarded optimism may be in order as international appeals coupled with Kofi Annan’a active intervention appears to have led to an agreement between President Mwai […]