According to Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Zimbabwe's inflation hit a record 26 470,8% in November 2007. These sorts of numbers defy commentary. They defy understanding.
According to Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Zimbabwe's inflation hit a record 26 470,8% in November 2007. These sorts of numbers defy commentary. They defy understanding.
Let's forget, if at all possible, the power outages, political debates, Robert Mugabe's destabilizing jackassery, and all of the other mundane grimness that afflicts South African public life these days. For the world of sport provides two of the saddest stories of all. The first is the fact that Bafana Bafana appears set to bow […]
For a couple of weeks it looked as if Kenyans has stepped back from the brink and that the worst was over. But such an assessment appears premature. Violence has escalated in recent days. On Tuesday a mob dragged Melitus Mugabe Were from his car and shot him dead. Were was a new member of […]
It almost certainly comes as a shock to absolutely no one that Robert Mugabe has acted in bad faith and announced unilaterally (even as he has been in the midst of negotiations with the factions of the Movement for Democratic Change) that elections will be held on March 2. Now the MDC is scrambling to […]
This weekend's New York Times travel section featured Cape Town in it's “36 Hours In . . .” feature. I’ve no idea why anyone traveling to Cape Town would spend so little time there. One can quibble with some of writer Michael Wines’ choices. And his perplexing analogy at the beginning of the piece. (“Cape […]
The Cape Argus on January 23, 2008, republished my latest Foreign Policy Association think piece under the title “Signs of a Magnificent Catastrophe.” (Pdf file) The piece appears smack-dab in the middle of the page. You can also track down a copy of Wednesday's editions as well.
The blackouts plaguing South Africa seem to be getting worse. The finger pointing is getting more intense as most everyone tries to apportion or shed blame. And now Business Report wonders if the recent woes in power delivery don't augur poorly for South Africans when the country hosts the 2010 World Cup. There seem to […]
Sasha Chanoff, cofounder and executive director of the humanitarian organization Mapendo International, recently wrote an essential op-ed piece for The Boston Globe debunking the myth of “tribal violence” in Kenya (and elsewhere). Here is the money excerpt: FROM READING recent headlines about Kenya, one would think that the post-election violence is the result of tribal […]
Sorry for the silence the last few days. Life (in this case a trip to see friends in the Rocky Mountains) intervened as it so often does. South Africa's electricity shortages have become increasingly acute, and now her neighbors are scrambling, with mixed results, to fill the void left by Eskom's decision to pull the […]
On the whole I’ve been pretty supportive of condemnation of Robert Mugabe coming from London and especially from Prime Minister Gordon Brown. It is thus disquieting to discover that perhaps Brown's words represent bluster and palaver. When the rubber meets the road, Zimbabweans looking to England to escape Mugabe's noxious kleptocracy are having a tough […]
More Zimbabwe correspondence from my friend. The following are some more of the observations I made during my short holiday in Zimbabwe:- The country still does not have a formal currency. It is still printing and using bearer cheques as legal tender. Besides, the bearer cheques were and continue to be in short supply resulting […]
A friend who works in South Africa but who is a Zimbabwe native visited his family over the Christmas holidays. Before he left I asked if he would send me a report upon his return so readers here can get a sense of things from the perspective of someone who loves his country but laments […]
A couple of stories that caught my eyes in the last couple of days: When observers of Africa want to point to a country that represents a success story, they often point to Botswana, by and large for good reasons. Stephanie Hanson of the Council on Foreign Relations investigates whether beneath the surface the picture is more complicated, especially […]
Thirty years ago this week the South African political philosopher Richard Turner was assassinated in his Durban home. South African History Online (SAHO) has put together a special feature on the anniversary of Turner's shooting. His daughter, the journalist Jann Turner, has included her own personal reflections of her father's life and death and what […]
It appears that some observers are finally beginning to counteract the shallow, facile narrative that overtook the analysis of the events in Kenya over the last couple of weeks. Caroline Elkins’ piece in The Washington Post this past weekend provided a model of how a historical analysis of the current events in Kenya ought to […]