Bill Keller recently reviewed John Carlin's Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation in The New York Times. Keller's review is glowing. I worry a bit that the book will be somewhat deterministic. The 1995 World Cup marked a nice moment for South Africa, and a profoundly powerful symbolic one […]
This past weekend's New York Times travel section had a cover feature on Namibia that provides pretty sound evidence for why that country is one of my very favorites.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is not only largely irrelevant in South African political life, it is an anachronism. Borne of the apartheid era, Mangosuthu Buthelezi's movement (which always was, as much as anything, a tribute to the glories of Mangosuthu Buthelezi) represented an ethnically driven party committed to Zulu nationalism that did not come […]
The newest issue of the incomparable journal Foreign Affairs has several short reviews of books on Africa. The topics of the books under review include Botswana's economic successes, another book on that country's military, the failure to establish democratic institutions in the Republic of Congo, Africa's political economy, and the role of Africa in the […]
In The Star Ufrieda Ho shows how many argue that Eskom's proposed rationing recommendations will hit the poor disproportionately: A 10 percent power cut for a Sandton man means his air-conditioner gathers dust; for the Soweto man it means he spends his nights in darkness. This is skewed equity Eskom-style, says environmental activist Bobby Peek. […]
In a recent article in The Mail & Guardian Michael Georgy makes the case that the deadlock in Zimbabwe represents yet another failure for Thabo Mbeki, another sign of his waning credibility and fading influence at home and abroad. The case seems pretty strong. Yet something about this argument does not strike me as being […]
The incomparable South African political observer and journalist Allister Sparks has an important column in the Cape Times. Here is the introduction: While everyone is anxious to see the Zimbabwe negotiations succeed in bringing relief to the long-suffering people of that country, it is nonetheless galling that the process should be taking place at all. […]
Somalia might be the most chaotic state in the world, to the point that it barely qualifies as a state any more. It's location on the Gulf of Aden means that Somalia also represents a sort of wild west for piracy. In the last two weeks two ships have been hijacked off the coast of […]
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, whose health has been in question for some time now (Thabo Mbeki caused a bit of a stir when he mistakenly announced a few weeks ago that Mwanawasa had died) has passed away. Observers fear that Mwanawasa's death could have two repurcussions, the first being causing political instability in Zambia, the […]
In the wake of the xenophobic violence that engulfed Gauteng earlier this year the government set up camps for those foreigners displaced by the chaos. Those camps were set to close on 15 August, but a group of foreign nationals has brought an application for relief to the Constitutional Court to keep the camps open. […]
It appears that the curious case of Cape Judge John Hlophe might reach its resolution soon one way or the other. Hlophe has been accused of trying to influence judges on the Constitutional Court to rule favorably for Jacob Zuma in one of the stages of the ANC President's corruption case. Hlophe has applied to […]
Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's head of state and, let's not mince words, war criminal, is leaving Sudan for the first time since his indictment for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. He is visiting Turkey, which does not recognize the ICC, to attend a summit of African leaders. Too many African states have been unwilling […]
Estimates of Zimbabwe's rate of inflation now have it pegged at 11 million percent (and, almost inevitably, rising). Those sorts of numbers are nearoly impossible to fathom, and can be attributed in large part to the country's political stalemate, to Robert Mugabe's cynical economic and political policies, and to the instability concomitant with Mugabe's reign.
My latest op-ed is available here. I am especially pleased with this one because The Zimbabwean represents the ultimate example of speaking truth against evil. It is an expat newspaper based in London, but which publishes in South Africa, where most of its print readership is based. My cynicism comes to the fore quite clearly, […]
A seemingly ubiquitous crime in South Africa in recent months has been the bombing and looting of ATM machines, especially, but not exclusively, in urban areas, particularly in Gauteng. The professionalization of this crime, and its recent profusion caused the Democratic Alliance to call for a probe of ATM bombings last month. Perhaps the DA's […]