The Republic of Dissent

Qaddafi and vindication

Juan Cole on the death of Gaddafi and the intervention of the US and Nato:

The Arab League, President Obama and NATO have been vindicated in their decision to forestall the massacre of eastern Libyan cities such as Benghazi. The region’s remaining bloodthirsty tyrants, who have not scrupled to massacre non-combatants for exercising their right of peaceable assembly and protest, should take the lesson that mass murder is a one-way ticket for them to the sewage drain of history. As I told the NYT today, ““The real lesson here is that there is a new wave of popular politics in the Arab world… People are not in the mood to put up with semi-genocidal dictators.”

I don't agree with Juan Cole or rather with the way he chooses to phrase the issue for two reasons. The first is that I don't think that death of Qaddafi or of any dictator is the measuring stick as to whether American intervention in the country was successful. If it were the case, Iraq would be a success.

The second reason is that long term matters especially when the policy before intervention whether it was direct or not was to interact with Qaddafi's regime.  In short, my problem is that Cole is solely moralizing the issue because he agrees with the policy instead of judging it on its merit, which is what happens on the ground.

I have to admit that because I lived through the capture of Saddam Hussein and his death, there is something about these flashy events that unsettle me while I hope that everything ends well and while I know the conclusion  will depend on acts not on good feelings and intentions.

The politics of aid and development

Question of the day taken from Peter Gill,'s article on Ethiopia and the politics of development assistance :

Is the rich world interested in helping Africa’s poor or in promoting government systems which resemble its own?

Race and American delusions

I have a problem with Bill Benzon's post on Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad at the Valve in which he compares them to Ike Turner and Sam Philips and finishes by suggesting that the solution is to get beyond the boundaries of language. Sugary excerpt:

The point of this exercise, no, this demonstration, is that language and its reasonings and arguments cannot, in principle, encompass everything. That life itself is greater than language goes without saying – or does it? What matters is how we conduct ourselves around and about, in the shadow of, language.

Because I believe as Eluard that les mots ne mentent pas, I have a problem with  what Benzon is demonstrating.  The attempt should never be to get beyond the boundaries of language, but to acknowledge them and to break them down. 

I know I promise to stop bashing constantly Obama (I believe that I'm doing it rationally and analytically), but I believe that his 2008 campaign showed that Benzon is wrong and that America's problem with race isn't about its people not being able to get along, but rather about their need to believe that race is all encompassing and that  it is about something grand, when it is about petty stuff and about that itch that Benzon seems to have to want Achebe and Conrad get along.  It is far too obvious that Achebe didn't want to get along with Conrad, but needed to punch him in the gut to affirm his own existence and to define in his own terms what it meant or rather didn't mean to be 'african' (my contention is that it doesn't mean anything for Achebe has much more in common with Joseph Conrad than he does with Ferdinand Oyono).

In short, my point to Benzon, to America, and to Americans  is get over it already! Race isn't about race and instead of obsessing about getting along or pretending that you want to or that you do get out your own way and stop being so self-involved!

Obsessing about making history

The sugary excerpt of the day comes from the great Stephen Smith from his must-read article on Laurent Gbagbo:

‘Gbagbo was born before shame,’ ordinary people in Abidjan used to say. It didn’t necessarily mean they disapproved of him. It was more a case of stating the obvious. The way he looked at it, history was the victors’ account of a merciless fight. ‘It’s difficult for us to make history,’ he once explained to me. ‘We have to carry out our own French Revolution with Amnesty International peering over our shoulder.’ Murder, intrigue, corruption, bare-faced lies, betrayal, ethnic cleansing: all means would be justifiable provided the end was attained. In Gbagbo’s home region, where Ivory Coast’s main cash crops are grown, the sons of the soil, the Bété, turned against migrant workers from poor Sahel states and against fellow Ivorians from other parts of the country.

It is alarming, to say the least, that so many political leaders are worried about making history rather than governing and improving the lives of their 'people.' Obsession with history is one of the reasons why there have been so many Mugabe, Gbagbo, Amin, Doe, Taylor, Gaddafi on the African continent for after all if one's only concern is history, the people become means to achieve greatness not much else, politics is religionized and political violence becomes acceptal and even normal.

Zombies at the Vatican

Another proof from R.W. Johnson that faith in politics is about the bling and should remain in the private sphere:

The news that Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace were among the million people (including 22 ‘world leaders’) who thronged St Peter’s Square for the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II lends a piquant note to what was already a gothic occasion. Their presence was not, in itself, surprising: Mugabe tends to remember he is a Catholic whenever it is convenient – as in the case of his marriage to Grace, celebrated in a Catholic high mass in Harare, although they had by then already had two children. More recently, however, the main point has been to evade the EU’s targeted sanctions and thus provide Grace (widely known as ‘Dis-Grace’) with opportunities for her extravagant shopping trips. The Mugabes were in Rome in 2005 for John Paul II’s funeral, and again in 2008 and 2009 for UN food conferences – they get a free pass from the Vatican and from the UN, of which Zimbabwe is still a member.

Congo, Mobutu, Stendhal and authenticité

Sugar excerpt from VS Naipaul, which needs no commentary, although I have to say that it bugs me:

One day in Kinshasa I had the inspiration to leave the hotel and take a taxi to the university. They were very all very nice, very welcoming, although they had no idea who I was or what I did. And I thought then, here are all these very bright people, whose minds are going to be turned to lead very soon - this was in Mobutu's country, and they had to be turned to lead if they were to earn a living. And I wondered how this could be done. And I had a feeling that it was done through this old belief. And Mobutu gave to it a nice name, authenticité. There are these brilliant young people who would talk to you about Stendhal, something so far from their experience, and talking quite intelligently about it. And yet when you met them in their next incarnation as government officers, all that had gone away.

Libya as Obama's failure

Ouch ! It's another way to say that I agree with Professor Bainbridge when he makes this solemn and sullen proclamation this:

I don't think anybody can trust Obama's judgment on military matters anymore, if they ever could.

I wanted this intervention to turn out better than it has (watching Bernard-Henri Lévy on American TV defend it forced me to question the thoroughness and seriousness of the decision making behind it). Things may still work out at the end, but it is obvious that there was too much faith, hope, wishful-thinking and not much hardcore analysis on the ways to intervene in Libya because doing so felt not only good, but it felt right and was telegenic.

Damn Barack you make it so hard for me to trust you ! It's another way to say that I wish I knew how to quit my Obama-skepticism.

Côte d'Ivoire, Libya and the audacity of hope

A good question from Gideon Rachman:

If the UN and western military forces are prepared to intervene so forcefully in Libya, why has the response to Ivory Coast been so relatively feeble?

The answer is an easy, but alarming one:  Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire is Côte d'Ivoire and Libya is Libya. That statement of fact means simply that it is easier to deal with the dead of Côte d'Ivoire than with the ones of Libya because there is a widely accepted presumption that some parts of the African continent are  at the heart of darkness, and thus too barbaric, and too 'out there' to be helped/saved. That explains why Congo (DRC) has never captured the world 's attention.  In shot, it all comes that to that silly Obamanian world hope. It is easier to accept hopelessness in Côte d'Ivoire than in Libya.

The universality of International law

Quote of the day from Anne Orford :

The bombing of Libya in the name of revolution may be legal, but the international law that authorises such action has surely lost its claim to be universal.

One question comes immediately to mind: does international law has to be universal to be just? My answer without much analysis is no.  However, international law does have to be consistent and to be aware of its contradictions to address its own obvious inadequacies. What bothers me about Libya isn't the act, but its consequences and its effectiveness. The possibility that the Libyan intervention may fail or succeed in such a manner that it becomes extremly expensive not financially, but morally is a problem.

The illusory Sarkozy moment

Oh no, Gavin Hewitt fell for the glitz and I have to say that it is breaking my heart to see a great analyst fall:

If sometime in the future the Libyan opposition win and come to power in Tripoli, they might consider a statue to the French president. There could be a Sarkozy Square or even a boulevard named after him.

There is no doubt that the French leader, with his renowned energy, was the key player in driving through a UN resolution that now allows "all necessary measures" to be used to protect civilians in Libya. He was undeterred by a divided EU and a G8 palpably unenthusiastic about any military action.

Hewitt focuses on the trees because there is no forest. There is no there there. The context  matters more than the bling. Given the fact that Sarkozy and others licked Gaddafi's feet when he had something to give them and that now that they clai to have had the epiphany that he is dangerous, they are much more cautious about acting to get rid of him,  the Libyen crisis cannot be about Sarkozy. In short, Sarkozy started to do a part of what needed to be done,  even if everything ends up wel and that he 'saves' the day, it cannot be said that he was the savior and that he had the solution. Sarkozy (and others) created the problem and took the minimum steps to clean his dirty hands. 

The only real heroes here, the people who are having their moment are the ones who died and who are fighting on the ground hoping that the poseurs who are using their revolution to reinvent themselves politically ill have the courage to do more even when actions will be expensive.

The devil you know...

Juan Cole on the Obama's position on Libya:

Washington appears to have decided it slightly preferred the devil it knew, and that may well be what it gets– though now a wounded devil talking crazily about global jihad against the West if things don’t go his way.

I'm surprised that people are surprised by what's happening in Libya and by the fact that Obama believes in real politik especially when idealism or doing the right thing is about something other than giving speeches and singing  "we have something in common."

The 'thing' speaks for itself

Gideon Rachman on Gaddafi and the 'contradictions'of the 'international community' (I have nothing but disdain for that term) :

There is no acknowledgement that is a disgrace that Libya is a member of the council [the United Nations Human Rights Council] in the first place. However, this is not some weird accident. It is the settled will of the international community. The Libyans were voted onto the council in May – getting 155 votes of the 192 UN members. Gaddafi is obviously a popular chap.

 

Gaddafi as the EU's bastard

Interesting point from Nathalie Rothschild,which I admit makes all warm and fuzzy:

In fact, the EU’s fear of unregulated migration has been a trump card for Gaddafi. Assuaging this EU fear has been a way for the Libyan leader to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the West after years of ostracisation. At the same time, threats to close and open borders have become a way for Gaddafi to hold the West to ransom, as he threatens to block trade deals or relax border controls unless Europe meets his demands. So it is not surprising that Gaddafi gave European nations the ultimatum of distancing themselves from the pro-democracy protesters or facing the supposed opening of the immigration floodgates from Africa. This is a real worry for the EU, which preaches about the virtues of democracy and human rights yet which has no interest in defending freedom of movement.
As we have seen with recent events in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, when people get a taste for freedom there’s no telling what they’ll do to achieve it.

When I was young, I thought at least that Gaddafi (Gadhafi, Khadafi) had presence, now he is just a caricature of the man he once was, even though it was always a bastard,  but bastards with presence can be inspiring leaders to the blind.

Good sense starts at home

The sugary excerpt is from Juan Cole's interesting post on Mubarak and his humiliation of Obama and America, I don't agree with a lot of Cole's assertion, but he is onto something and his main point ihat foreign policy has domestic repercussions and vice versa is valid:

As long as the president and the Congress are willing to lie down and serve as doormats for America’s supposed allies in the Middle East– out of a conviction of the usefulness of their clients and the inexpensiveness of putting them on retainer– there will be anti-Americanism and security threats that force us to subject ourselves to humiliating patdowns and scans at the airport and an erosion of our civil liberties every day. We are only one step away of being treated, with “protest zones” and “Patriot Acts” just as badly as the peaceful Egyptian protesters have been.

Foresight and narrow-mindedness

Fraser Nelson over at the Spectator's Coffee House can't step out his way to see the forest through the trees:

In Egypt, the army look like they are settling in. If there is regime change, I doubt that whoever takes over will be pro-Western (the crowds will likely remember that the tear gas used on them was dispensed in canisters saying “Made in USA”). The grim fact remains that Iran is racing towards the bomb, and if they succeed then the Sunni world – in Saudi Arabia and Cairo – will likely follow suit. I’d love to see some wind of change blowing through Arab street, but I still fear that we’re heading for a multi-polar nuclear standoff in the only part of the world which is mad enough to use nuclear weapons. I do hope I’m wrong.

The trouble with Nelson isn't that he may be wrong or can be right, but rather that he sees Egypt not as a country like his own or any 'normal' one (I would use Western, but I don't believe in the existence of the West or in the division of the world between the West and the rest). Egypt to Nelson is a means to an end or worst a part of a jungle whose happenings must not be allowed to disturb the peace and stability of the 'modern world.'  The issue isn't about what the events of Egypt means for the rest of the world, but about what they mean for Egyptians. It is alarming to realize that too many including the prominent members of the Obama administration haven't learned from the greatest mistakes of the past. Doing so would have taught them that tolerating wrongs to avoid the worst never works in international politics for the simple reason that it legitimates the worst by delegitimating the moral arguments against it.

Thus, tying to the fall of Mubarak to the nuclearisation of Iran and of the whole middle east is like tying the fall of Louis XVI to the rise of anarchy in Europe and of the reign of terror. History isn't gastronomy and Egyptians are thus neither ingredients nor slaves of a predictable or controllable future.

The Egyptian State and legitimacy

Sugary excerpt of the day is from Juan Cole on the Egyptian revolt (I don't think the word revolution applies here, at least not yet):

The Nasserist state, for all its flaws, gained legitimacy because it was seen as a state for the mass of Egyptians, whether abroad or domestically. The present regime is widely seen in Egypt as a state for the others– for the US, Israel, France and the UK– and as a state for the few– the Neoliberal nouveau riche. Islam plays no role in this analysis because it is not an independent variable. Muslim movements have served to protest the withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities, and to provide services. But they are a symptom, not the cause. All this is why Mubarak’s appointment of military men as vice president and prime minister cannot in and of itself tamp down the crisis. They, as men of the System, do not have more legitimacy than does the president– and perhaps less.

I'm wondering whether this means that this revolt will  end with the reestablishment of the Nasserist state rather than something more democratic, in other words is it just a fight to return to what 'worked' in the past ?

Obama's Tunisia

Sarkozy's handling of the events in Tunisia was widely criticized. I'm simply wondering what will be said of Obama's handing the events in Egypt.

Real politik may be effective, but it has a price especially for leaders who had the audacity not of hope, but to declare themselves different/better/more moral than their predecessors to end up shamelesslly continuing too many of their policies. Ah the illusions of change !

Right diagnostic, wrong solutions

At least Chinua Achebe, to the contrary of Obasanjo, gets part of the diagnostic  of the ills of Nigeria right:

We have endured a terrible failure of leadership – not just individuals, but a whole class of potential leaders, from which I do not absolve myself. The role of the intellectual is difficult. We should live by what we preach and we should speak out. In that way we always seemed to be superior to our former western leaders. For them, writers and painters just had to write and paint and keep out of politics. Leadership in all its forms is a sacred trust in a democracy, almost like an anointed priesthood.

Is it just me or isn't there something wrong when people  are too obsessed with 'identity', authenticity, an all the glitz to focus on just getting things right? I may be a petulant child, but I'm coming to the conviction that there can only be a decline of intelligence when the focus is on the 'who' especially when there is neither a collective nor a single answer to that question. 

There isn't such a thing as the African being and the fact that Achebe and Obasanjo are desperately looking for it explain why they never saw the forest through the trees.

Self-reliance is for others

Quote of the day is from Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's former president :

Africa needs as many friends as possible. And if anything there should be co-operation from east and west, to pull Africa up.

I find this sentence appalling. As always 'Africa' is used to create an imaginary entity, which one doesn't have to define, but simply has to dream and to be able to assert something that is illogical without being challenged.

Africa is as real as Xanadu. There are only african countries, which have to realize that their destiny is in their hands and that it is foolish to believe that all countries on a continent have a common destiny and identity. In short, Obasanjo, as all of his peers, uses the word 'Africa' to hide from the sad reality that he has no imagination and not enough no-how to help Nigeria. He is suffering from what I like to call the Caligula complex, which is the obsession with the sun to avoid focusing on what one considers small and prosaic things, but which are, alas, essential.

Radio France Internationale

I appeared on a show called le débat africain (in French) on RFI in which I asserted that there isn't such a thing as Africanity. It is a position on which I will elaborate on December 13 when at last, I'm having, at the Lucernaire in Paris (7 pm), a soirée to present my book, L'Empreinte des Choses Brisées and of course to sign copies. So if you are in Paris or just want to pick a fight with me or just to listen to something fresh on identity, sexuality and les choses brisées, come and bring a friend.

 

1. La diaspora africaine aux Etats-Unis

(19:31)

2. La diaspora africaine aux Etats-Unis

(19:31)

'Africa' and Vile psychologization

I found the following sugary excerpt from Brendan O'Neill vile :

It isn’t because they have been brainwashed that many Africans choose not to wear condoms. It could be because, in a continent where there are still high levels of infant mortality, they want to have as many children as possible, since children are frequently needed to work on the farm, earn money and care for older generations. Or it could be because they want to express their love for each other in the most intimate way possible, without a sheath. Or – and I know this will be hard for the Home Counties humanists to comprehend – it could be because in countries where life is short and expectations low, people have different attitudes to risk than we in the West do. There are many reasons why Africans – both Catholic and non-Catholic – might choose not to wear a condom, and they are not irrational. And, of course, there’s the very basic fact that in very poor countries with little medical infrastructure, diseases spread faster and have worse consequences than they do in the developed West, with or without papish propaganda.

First, I don't know who O'Neil is talking about when he talks about 'Africans.' Second, I wonder why the behavior of some people from the african continent is analyzed as the norm for all, as something that all those people  do because they are from there. In short, in an attempt to make a fair point, Brendan O'Neill took a shortcut, which led him to the middle of nowhere for after reading him, he succeeds in doing only one thing, which is forcing people who come from the same geographical location the same who act a certain way, by implying that the action in question is conditioned mysteriously in part by that strange place, where nothing is the same, that isn't part of history, where gravity doesn't function, where people are particular, a place that is the Babylonia of culturalists and of tribalists: Africa.

What is most disturbing and distressing is that it never occurs to O'Neill that the 'Africans' he is talking about are just people like him and their behavior have nothing to do with a supposed and nonexistent Africanness, but their own individuality. I mean why and where guys would get the idea that having children and sleeping with a lot of women without protection is a sign of manliness as Harvey Mansfield would say?  Eh oui, a lot of people from the heart of darkness are just Harvey Mansfield's disciples  and believe selfishly, in a manly manner, that they are such masterpieces of nature that they need to breed as much as possible to create 'little thems' to make the world a better place. The foolishness of unapologetic and deified manliness are universal.

Naipaul and writing about 'Africa'

Excerpt of Aminatta Forna's review of V.S. Naipaul's latest The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African belief in the Guardian:

It is a quest through the continent for the spirit of African belief, the belief systems that preceded the arrival of Christianity and Islam – which is very much in keeping with the legacy of Joseph Conrad, who is referenced several times in the book. Already this feels cliched and tiresome; one yearns for the day when an author from outside can approach Africa without invoking the "heart of darkness" mythology. In 1975, Chinua Achebe published an essay attacking Conrad's best-known work as racist and already the novelist Robert Harris has described The Masque of Africa as "toxic".

This review makes me feel uncomfortable for two reasons. The first reason is that again, it is assumed that there is a such a thing as an "Africa" populated by Africans, with a particular identity and beliefs, which make them atypical or rather which explain why their continent is conventionally believed to be unmodern or in the back of the train of civilization. The second reason is that it seems that too writer who wants to write about the African continent like to make it feel as if it is an unique undertaking that must be judge by different standards and that their work must be judge with compassion and while having a forgiving consideration that they are doing something too difficult by going to the barbarians. The trouble is that reviewers and critiques enable them more often than not and judge their work as if it is different, out of the margins of literature because the subject matter is particular and so dark and foreign.

Since having my book published, I have realized that in France, in particular, it assumed that Africa and Africans are so different and atypical that their writings have to be belittled or graded with a curve and that more importantly, they are only entitled to talk about darkness, africanity, colonialism, and post-colonialism. The trouble comes when you refuse to fit that mold...I have wondered whether Conrad's The Heart of Darkness would be such as classic if it had been written by one of the 'savages.' Culturalism is destroying literature.

The allusory and illusory African World Cup

Interesting and informative words from Sanza Tshabalala (first quote) and Ann Berstein (second) on the South African World Cup, the obsession with race and the horrendously stupid and anti-intellectual notion that it was the African World Cup:

The more the African teams were going down, the more I started getting worried about our race relations. I thought, we [Africans] are not doing well otherwise and I thought we would do well in football and it would maybe do something with our pride.
I’m obsessed with race issues. South Africans should be behind African teams. Then I went to see the Argentina-Nigeria game, at Ellis Park. And I see young Indian professionals, white people, all dressed up in Lionel Messi jerseys, and the few of us [who] are supporting Nigeria – probably 2 per cent of the stadium. I sat there thinking, ‘What’s this society going to?’ Because we’re meant to be supporting an African team, aren’t we?

---

Why? Why should we support an African team? There isn’t a black view, nor is there a white view. What’s striking to me, going to a Soccer City game, was that you were seeing very large numbers of this emerging black lower middle class. They could afford to come to the game, they had all the right clothes and they were there. Class is more important now.

This World Cup confirmed my belief  that Africanity/Africanness  is a concept created by those who refuse to acknowledge the complexities and the diversity of the African continent either because it challenges their prejudices and received ideas or because it is more convenient for them to believe that the populations of the African continent, as Conrad's cannibals, are the same and therefore have the same views, the same needs, and the same identity. It would be too inconvenient for Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, the football international governing body, to accept the idea that the South African World Cup was solely the one of a country not of a continent because it would mean taking the risk to have another country on the same continent host the World Cup sooner than in a decade or two. In short, africanity/africanness is about anything but reality for it is an attempt to take short cuts to avoid acknowledging unsettling realities and to be content with bienfaisant paternalism or simply paternalistic humanism.

Ghana not Africa

Ghana lost yesterday. I had predicted that the Black stars would win if they were capable of ignoring the symbolic "crap" about Ghana representing the whole African continent and some type of imaginary "Africanity." Ghana lost yesterday mostly because the pressure of representing something other than itself crushed its players. Asamoah Gyan, the poor guy who missed the penalty that would have sent his country to the semi-final, thought undoubtedly about all the fluff, about the idiotic and anti-intellectual notion that he was carrying the hopes of 'Africa' on his shoulders instead of calming himself down to remember that Ghana isn't 'Africa'  and the game against Uruguay wasn't another absurd and futile identity struggle.
Next time, because there will be a next time for Ghana, its players should just think of themselves, their country, and ignore the burden of a nonexistent common identity and of a idealized history. Ghana isn't 'Africa' and remembering it can only be productive for it is a liberating reality.

Before or after whatever

Scenery: It's hot, humid, and quiet, but this calme trompeur will not last for it is less than an hour from the game between Ghana and Uruguay... It's amazing to see how all-encompassing sports can be when it becomes about something other than fun, but about identity. I'm sports fanatic, but I wouldn't die for it. In any case, I'm not watching the game for I'm going to bed. I watched too much tennis (Nadal  won!!!) and Brazil lost, which made my day. Besides I know the outcome of the game already: Ghana is going to win. The Black stars will win because they are the better team and because the only thing that can stop them is all the fluff and the burdensome symbolic noise, which may paralyze them and make them believe that they are fighting for something bigger and that football is an identity struggle which can repair injustices or rather fix a country's and  a continent's ills. Thus, Ghana will win if the Black Stars make the temperate choice to play just football and to ignore the chatter about its meaning.

Eternal damnation

Sugary excerpt of the day from Carole Enahoro:

If you write political fiction then you must expect complete strangers to grill you on any subject that crosses the collective transom. And if you’re carrying any African DNA, you’re doomed to read newspapers on a daily basis.
I noted this with the sad life of Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s 1986 Nobel Prize-winning writer. His eyes are hooded with fatigue. For any incident on which every vital and important person in Nigeria has already commented, the media hurries off to Wole for a quick quote. He is the voice of progressive Africa, whether or not progressive Africans agree with him.

Choosing food over democracy

The quote of the morning is from Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president running from reelection among increasing scrutiny over his autocratic instincts:

Democracy is good music but you need somebody with ears to listen to that music. It doesn't matter how much you talk about democracy or human rights. Tell me about a family who spend the whole night looking at one another and wondering whether they will have something to eat. Are they thinking about anything else? They are just not listening.

The South African World Cup and its potential unwanted guests

Predictable difficulties to the beginning of the World Cup in South Africa:

(...)at the last African Union summit Zuma declared that this was not South Africa’s World Cup but Africa’s and that all African heads of state were welcome. It now emerges that 50 out of 52 are said to be coming plus their considerable retinues. Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, may be among them, although there is a warrant out for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, and legally South Africa would be compelled to detain him. Another difficult case will be Robert Mugabe, since Biden and many others will wish to avoid having to meet the Zimbabwean president or shake his hand.

My guess is that both Mugabe and al-Bashir will act as if their most ardent desire is to participate  to what they will claim to be an 'African' party until the last minute. The goal will be to play, as usual, the role of victims, but neither of them will show up. Omar al-Bashir will be too afraid to get arrested and Mugabe won't dare to embarrass Zuma who is a key ally.

However, there is another 'colorful' character that will certainly show up and do everything he can to attract the spotlight: Gaddafi. He will wear his usual pin of Africa and act as if he is the 'African president.'

The intolerable notion of sin in politics

Disturbing quote from Yasmin Albhai-Brown:

In international politics, too, memories roam and fuel conduct. Take the very moving film about a white farming family in Zimbabwe this week. What was the back-story, the historical decisions and power grabs that created the civil enmities? We Ugandan Asians were cruelly dispossessed by Idi Amin in Uganda, but we too must ask why so many Africans ended up hating us – our racism and economic greed consumed them and they then behaved abominably. And the British need to acknowledge their role in the making of leviathans like Mugabe and Amin.

According to Alibhai-Brown's logic,  the original sin is always more important than anything else that follows and the real culprits are never doers who fit a particular profile or share a certain history but rather those who should have stopped them or who enabled them or had the power over them once upon a time. In short, Mugabe and Amin were creatures of the Brits who don't have the right to judge them because they are the original sinners.

Scary and distressing logic, which divides the world between the powerful who are always guilty of something because the sinful past and the weak who always have an excuse for doing the unconscionable. In short, the notion of sin in politics is a limited, destructive and misguided one which just facilitates intellectual masturbation and other self-indulgences.

Contraception and fanaticism in Congo

Once in a while Nick Kristof gets things right:

In rural parts of Congo Republic, the other Congo to the north, we found that even when people had heard of contraception, they often regarded it as unaffordable.
Most appalling, all the clinics and hospitals we visited in Congo Republic said that they would sell contraceptives only to women who brought their husbands in with them to prove that the husband accepted birth control.
Condoms are somewhat easier to obtain, but many men resist them. More broadly, many men seem to feel that more children are a proud sign of more virility.
So the pill, 50 years old this month in the United States, has yet to reach parts of Africa. And condoms and other forms of birth control and AIDS prevention are still far too difficult to obtain in some areas.

One of the most appalling facts about the  limited use of contraception isn't used in Congo and other African countries is the role that American evangelism plays in strengthening old beliefs that women are breeders and not contraception isn't just bad, but evil. The point isn't here that the problem has been imported or is being created by American evangelists, thus making the issue one of identity or one of eternal victimization but rather that that imported fanaticism is making an already catastrophic situation  worst by convincing well intentioned, but limited people that ignorance, poverty, and anti-intellectualism  are not just bliss, but also close to Godliness.

Conventional and damaging beliefs

The most painfully and hurtfully naïve statement of the day:

I genuinely believe that the legacy of colonialism is to blame for so many of the woes facing the African continent today, and that former colonising countries can and should do more to address the global inequality that was built on the backs of slavery and colonialism.

The trouble with this assertion is that it is based uniquely on feelings and ideology and that it is more importantly unhelpful and superfluous.

Jacob Zuma year I

Roger Southall offers this assessment of Jacob Zuma's one year as South Africa's president, which I believe, is on point:

The coalition of the left and the politically aggrieved that brought Jacob Zuma to power is now openly fragmenting, and Zuma seems at a total loss at how to deal with the process. As a result, there is a widespread sense of a vacuum at the centre of his government, with important policy matters drifting and the different tendencies fighting.The present struggle is a vitally important one. The left is divided from fiscal conservatives on matters of economic policy, yet they share a common interest in confronting the dangers of growing patronage and corruption. Whether they can bury their differences sufficiently to confront a common enemy is a question without an answer. An alarming prospect is that they will knock each other out in battle, leaving the third tendency to march South Africa along the road to Zimbabwe.

The problem is that for South Africa and South Africans,  there is, for now, no alternative to Jacob Zuma and to the ANC.

The Albino body parts trade

Scary, disturbing, but yet just another consequence of the deification of intolerable traditions:

Albinos are often betrayed by husbands or other relatives, lured by payments of up to $3,000 for an albino limb and $75,000 for a “full set” of albino body parts. The parts are ground into potions and talismans that are believed to bring wealth and power.
A recent survey found that 93 per cent of Tanzanians believe in witchcraft – the highest percentage in Africa. Witch doctors were banned by the government last year, yet many still operate freely.
Albinos have been murdered in other African countries too, including at least a dozen in Burundi. The difference, however, is that the Burundi killers were prosecuted and convicted, which rarely happens in Tanzania, despite pledges of action from its Prime Minister.

Obama and Sudan

Expected development from Obama's views of Sudan and Darfur:

Until he reached the White House, Barack Obama repeatedly insisted that the United States apply more pressure on Sudan so as to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and elsewhere.
Yet, as president, Mr. Obama and his aides have caved, leaving Sudan gloating at American weakness. Western monitors, Sudanese journalists and local civil society groups have all found this month’s Sudanese elections to be deeply flawed — yet Mr. Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, pre-emptively defended the elections, saying they would be “as free and as fair as possible.” The White House showed only a hint more backbone with a hurried reference this week to “an essential step” with “serious irregularities.”

The fact that Nicholas Kristof is surprised that Obama is behaving differently as a president than as candidate especially when it comes to an oil rich country like Sudan whose natural resources are coveted by China, France, and other European countries, shows that  he doesn't know much about the realities on the ground in many African countries. The fact is that when it comes to natural resources, realpolitik will always supersedes good sentiments and human rights. The cat was let out the bag when Carter landed in Khartoum  to supervise an election that all the main opposition parties boycotted.

Un-Islamic music

Another proof that there is something rotten in the Republic of Somalia:

Last week, in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, more than a dozen radio stations switched off their music in accordance with an ultimatum from Islamist rebels.
Apparently seeking to bolster their global-jihadist credentials, Somali extremist groups Hezb al-Islam and their sometime-allies al-Shebab decreed that all music - Arab, East African or Britney Spears - ­ is "un-Islamic", and ordered all radio stations to cease playing it, in any form, or face "serious consequences".
Broadcasters were quick to devise light-hearted alternatives to their scheduled music, re-recording ads and replacing bridging jingles with the sounds of car horns, frogs croaking, roosters crowing and, with grim irony, gunfire. ­ The situation was bizarre enough to earn the beleaguered Somalis a spoof-tribute on America's National Public Radio.

Freedom, gender, and the fear of rape

Sugary excerpt of the morning from Jennifer Thorpe:

The saga around the gender testing of Caster Semenya rocked our foundations last year. Suddenly we weren’t sure what the boundaries for man and women were. We were forced to reconsider the nature nurture debate, but it remained a theoretical one as the protections for her dignity prevented us from knowing the results of these “gender tests”. The result would not have been able to answer the question though. Caster Semenya might not tell us whether her test revealed that she was female, or male, but she might be able to tell us what it means to be a woman, having been subject to such scrutiny herself.
Perhaps she might tell us that women in South Africa don’t have it easy. It’s hard to feel free when you must constantly evaluate your surroundings waiting for a rapist to strike. It’s hard to be free when the crime of rape is one of the only crimes where the burden of proof is on the survivor because of a problematic definition of rape that talks about consent, rather than coercive circumstances.

Rwanda, the rule of law and genocide ideology

As a lawyer, this troubles me:

Rwandan authorities arrested a top opposition politician on Wednesday and charged her with genocide ideology — a contentious crime that many critics say has been used to stifle dissent — and with cooperating with a notorious rebel group.
The politician, Victoire Ingabire, has been one of the most vocal opposition figures in a country that seems to have grown increasingly intolerant of political challenges. She was summoned to a police station at 9 a.m., according to her assistant. Mrs. Ingabire, an accountant who had lived in Europe for years, has been under investigation since nearly the moment she returned to Rwanda in January and announced she was running for president.
Investigators have interrogated her several times on suspicion of instigating ethnic divisions. She said in an interview last month that she was being persecuted for simply challenging the government.

I'm bother by this kind of sentimentalization of the law for political purposes for two reasons none of which have to do with Victoire Ingabire and her views, which I find despicable. The first is that it shows that Kagame who is, undoubtedly, one of the best African president when it comes to managing his country and enriching it, is also an autocrat. The second reason is that the charge of genocide ideology in my opinion, which isn't one of an expert in the area, is that it keeps the past alive and therefore makes national reconciliation among Rwandans difficult because the Hutu will always be guilty or rather suspected of preparing a genocide. I always find it dangerous when history is used by politicians to maintain their grip on power. 

Missing Thabo Mbeki

It was inevitable, after a short time under Jacob Zuma, some South Africans including Khaya Dlanga are missing the inadequate former president Thabo Mbeki:

The question needs to be asked; when Thabo Mbeki ran for a third term as ANC president, is it possible that he was trying to save the organisation from itself? Is it possible that he could foresee what was going to happen if the ANC was given to the current leadership? Of course if he really thought that he was the only one who could save the ruling party from itself, and then his detractors would say this is precisely the reason he needed to go. Perhaps he was the last ANC man.
When he was president we discussed AsgiSA, the African renaissance, Gear, Aids even when people thought he was wrong, the economy, battling CEOs on his blog. We always knew where he stood. We never discussed his personal life. No one doubted he had control over the ANC. He was far, far from perfect as any man. We always discussed the country when he was president, not him.

The chance that South Africa is that contrary to other countries on the African continent, it has strong institutions, but whether they can sustain or rather save the country from poor political leadership is an open question.

South Africa, the World Cup, reconciliation, and Invictus

David Zirin argues that the Soccer Football World cup in South Africa might have the reverse effects of the 1995 Rugby World, which brought South Africans together as the movie Invictus showed (you can find my review in French of the movie in here):

In a normal month, South Africa has more protests per capita than any nation on earth. But when you factor in the World Cup crackdown, a simmering nation can explode. Over 70,000 workers have taken part in strikes connected to World Cup projects since the preparations have begun, with 26 strikes since 2007. On March 4th, more than 250 people, in a press conference featuring representatives from four provinces, threatened to protest the opening game of the Cup unless their various demands were met. These protests should not be taken lightly, A woman named Lebo said to me, “We have learned in South Africa that unless we burn tires, unless we fight police, unless we are willing to return violence on violence, we will never be heard,” Patrick Bond from the Center Civil Society in Durban said to me that protests should be expected: “Anytime you have three billion people watching, that’s called leverage.” Indeed. There is a scene in Invictus where Freeman’s Mandela says, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. I am the master of my fate.” The people of South Africa still consider themselves unconquerable: whether they face apartheid, FIFA, or their current government. But FIFA insists with equal insistence that the World Cup will brook no dissent. In 90 days, we’ll find out who masters the fate of this beloved country.

Invictus romanticized the reconciling effects of the Rugby World cup. In any case, I doubt that the positive effects of that competition were long lasting for the reality didn't change and what saved the day was the fact that Mandela chose not to threat carefully and not to follow the Mugabe example. My view on the matter is that sports bring people together for a short time and can be an integrating and a reconciling tool if politics create a fruitful context and emphasize reconciliation.

In short, the World Cup in South Africa will be undoubtedly be a success (for the spectators and the visitors not necessarily for South Africans), but it is less likely to unify South Africans because of the politics and the political and societal context of their country. One has to remember that Nelson Mandela was the president in 1995 and was so beloved that he could encourage and cement the symbolic of sports. Jacob Zuma isn't Nelson Mandela.

China's growing 'empire' on the African continent

Howard W. Friend asks some good questions about China's presence and influence in African countries:

China’s burgeoning partnership with Africa raises several momentous questions: Is a hands-off approach to governmental affairs the right one? Can Chinese money and ambition succeed where Western engagement has manifestly failed? Or will China become the latest in a series of colonial and neocolonial powers in Africa, destined like the others to leave its own legacy of bitterness and disappointment?

The answers to those questions doesn't depend on China, which like all the former Colonial powers and powerful countries, is on the African continent because of its national interests not to help African countries develop themselves. The answers depend as always on the politicians and other leaders of African who too often fall in love with powerlessness to dare to dream of different future than their present realities and unfortunate pasts.

Mugabe and nonracialism

It is both ironic and distressing to compare what Mugabe said before his country's independence (exactly 30 years ago) when he was trying to get the support of the outside world in his fight for independence and what he started doing and saying when he lost grip of  powers and realized that he his country's prosperity and its citizens' welfare only mattered if he was the state. To put things simply, racial politics are seldom based on sincerity and conviction, but solely based on greed, ambition , and fears. Thus, racial politics is solely about power and legitimating appalling ways to distribute or redistribute it. Mugabe became both a racialist and a racist politically when he realized that it was the only for him to keep Zimbabwe as his personal possession just as the Congo used to be King Leopold's machin. The point of this comparison is that there isn't much difference between a racialist like Mugabe and the leaders of the former Colonial countries. The tragedy for Zimbabwe and for many African countries is that their political leaders recolonized them by making the state their private thing.

The neocolonial pretext

Graça Machel, a South African politician playing the neocolonialism card:

I think this should be an opportunity for Britain to re-examine its relationship with its colonies. To acknowledge that with independence those nations will want to have a relationship with Britain which is of shoulder to shoulder, and they will not expect Britain to continue to be the big brother. (...)When a nation is independent, there is no big brother. They are partners. Part of the reason why Britain finds it difficult to accept Zimbabwe is precisely because that relationship of a big brother is influencing [efforts] to try to understand.

Too many politicians of African countries like to behave as if theyare hunted by the dead goals of the past. That sorrowful pretense gives them a way to escape their grave responsibilities for the current state of affairs of their countries and the distress of their population. It is an excuse for their lack of achievements and a justification for their egotism and self-centeredness. It doesn't mean that the world is a place where there is no power struggles between rich and poor countries, and no influence of the strong over the weak. It means simply this reality, which is a old as the world isn't an excuse for incompetence, greed, inculture, complacency, and lack of vision and literature

Congo as the rape country

Frightening:

Sexual violence has become increasingly pervasive in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where civilian rape has risen 17-fold in the past few years, says a report released today by Oxfam.
The study found that 38% of rapes were committed by civilians in 2008, compared with less than 1% in 2004. "These findings imply a normalisation of rape among the civilian population, suggesting the erosion of all constructive social mechanisms that ought to protect civilians from sexual violence," it said.
Armed groups, including the army and Congolese and Rwandan militias, have raped tens of thousands of women in Congo. But the report, Now, the World is Without Me, said about 56% of sexual assaults were committed by armed men in homes in the presence of the victim's families, including their children. About 16% reported were in fields, and 15% in forests. Incidents of sexual slavery were reported by 12% of women surveyed, with some held hostage for years.

I'm just wondering why, if women and their rights are so important, a war isn't been fought to liberate them in Congo or at the very least to enable them not to live with the fear of getting rape.

Zimbabwe and the race narrative

I wish that I could agree with Douglas Rogers on the fact that Zimbabwe due to Mugabe's miscalculations is on his way to becoming a postracial state, but I cannot:

(...) in 2000, within weeks of losing a constitutional referendum to entrench his power, Mr. Mugabe began the catastrophic land invasions that resulted in the eviction of almost all the country’s 4,500 white farmers and the ruin of what was once a model post-colonial African country. Ever since, the narrative of Zimbabwe has been one of race. Rare is the speech in which Mr. Mugabe does not rail against whites, colonialists, imperialists or the West. Members of his ZANU-PF party have spoken of a “Rwandan solution” for Zimbabwe’s whites.
Westerners have simply accepted this narrative of blacks and whites pitted against one another. But, in doing so, they have missed the inspiring story of what has actually been happening in Zimbabwe over the past decade. After years of mass unemployment, mutant inflation, chronic shortages and state violence, Zimbabweans simply don’t care about skin color. In fact, Mr. Mugabe has managed to achieve the exact opposite of what he set out to do in 2000: the forging of a postracial state.

Unfortunately, in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, race becomes the central narrative and the determinative issue when people don't believe that politics and economics are a zero-sum game. Mugabe has done a very good job at convincing people of the fact that for the majority to become winners, the minority, the 'non africans' (whites) have to lose.

Uganda, homophobia, and the responsibility of the 'West'

I agree almost totally with Ken McLaughlin's assertion that Uganda's homophobia has been exacerbated (not created) by outside influences:

Care needs to be taken not to overstate the influence of three extreme and objectionable American evangelical Christians. Ugandans are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with whatever nonsense such people pour forth. The reasons for the current anti-homosexual climate are complex, influenced by historical, social, religious and cultural factors. However, the role of the West, from the colonial to the contemporary period, is of relevance when considering what is happening in Uganda today.
Attitudes to homosexuality in Uganda, as in most countries, have varied historically – at points being tolerant, at others intolerant. However, the current criminalisation of homosexuality is a legacy of British colonialism, whereby the colonial powers sought to punish local practices that they deemed to constitute ‘unnatural sex’. More recently, the US administration under George W Bush praised Uganda’s heterosexual, family-values policies and donated millions of dollars to sexual abstinence programmes. And now, Uganda finds itself being used as a proxy site for Western culture wars, with politicians, church leaders, gay and anti-gay activists getting involved in the debate and escalating the situation.

It is indisputable, in my opinion, that homophobia in Uganda and elsewhere has become a major political issue in part because of outside factors and influence. In those countries, it is used as both a political and an identity tool (identity politics here again is key); it is a way to reaffirm the omnipotence of traditional values which are seen as the basis of an imagined 'Africanity' which is seen as under assault from the outside world and oneeds to be revived to fix all problems including the one of development. I don't believe that the world should remain silent in front what is happening to Uganda, but rather that it should not make it an issue as one between the 'West' and the 'rest' by moralizing it, but rather should simply humanize it to avoid stupid debates about colonialism, neocolonialism, cultural imperialism, and every other silly pretexts used to justify the unjustifiable.

Racialized!

This video depicts, I'm afraid, a reality that ought to be expected when identity politics become the supreme form of politics and when race becomes supra-essential. How different is South Africa from the United States? Or rather would the United States be South Africa if the majority was impoverished since it too is racialized society

The new scramble for Africa

Via Mother Jones (h/t: Sean Jacobs), here is the new map of Africa highlighting the fact that Africa is ground zero for celebrity activism. I'm not scandalized for outrage is easy and moreover, it is useless in this situation for the key questions are does celebrity activism facilitate or hinder the development of African countries?And why is it so prevalent?

Mandela wasn't enough

Thought provoking quote from an observer in David Smith's article in the Guardian comparing Julius Malema to Robert Mugabe and trying to understand his appeal to millions of young South Africans:

I went into a toilet and saw some graffiti on a wall. I've never forgotten it. It said: 'Blacks have Nelson Mandela so they think they're free. Pathetic race.

In other words, identity politics rarely solve real problems because they use the symbolic to ignore social and economic questions or rather make social and economic issues into ones about identity by focusing on race or whatever else.

South Africa is colonizing Zimbabwe

Provocative assertions from Innocent Madawo and unfortunately, he is more right than wrong, which shows once again that the idea of 'Africanness,' 'blackness' is superfluous for even people who have the skin colors can have different interests and will not hesitate to establish their supremacy to protect those interest, realpolitik is colorblind :

In a typical case of “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” Mr. Zuma recently “ordered” Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai to avoid any political drama until after the soccer World Cup, a money-spinning extravaganza from which Zimbabwe could benefit. Obviously, Mr. Zuma will dictate what course Zimbabwean politics should take afterward, but his decision will be guided by South Africa's economic needs in Zimbabwe, not what Zimbabweans want. If that's not being colonized, what is?

The battle of the Africa-saving egos

I agree with Nathalie Rothschild on this:

Apparently, we Westerners can’t take issues seriously unless the likes of Brad Pitt and Bono tell us to, and apparently people in Africa and elsewhere are too busy scrambling for food and swiping flies off their faces to speak up and lobby politicians. Enter do-gooding celebs, NGOs and anti-globalisation protesters to speak on behalf of the ‘voiceless’. As Bono put it at the time, ‘I represent a lot of people [in Africa] who have no voice at all…. They haven’t asked me to represent them. It’s cheeky but I hope they’re glad I do.’
(...)But what Make Poverty History really represented was an entrenchment of low ambitions for the developing world and of the division of the globe into Third World victims and Western saviours.
 (...)While celebrities strummed their guitars and tugged at our heart strings, and while aid organisations hired top ad agencies to create clever campaigns, those at the receiving end of poverty relief programmes were being condemned to a life determined by the poor ambitions of Western decision-makers and their celebrity and NGO cheerleaders.
So John Hilary has accused Bob Geldof of arrogance, of believing that ‘he alone was responsible for creating a mass movement on global poverty’. He is right. But it’s not just Geldof, but also international aid organisations, multilateral agencies, global leaders and a melange of celebrities who together have helped perpetuate the idea that people in the developing world are beggars who can’t be choosers, that they should be happy that Westerners are helping take the edge off poverty. Together, they have made sidestepping the democratic process seem acceptable, as time and again they claim the right to speak on behalf of poor people around the world who are portrayed as victims of corrupt governments, as starving, voiceless, weaklings in need of rescue.

The main problem with celebrity activism is that just as humanitarian interventionism, it assumes in a way that is often more paternalistic than humanitarian or charitable that those who need helps are powerless, unable to help them and even to know what is good for them. Thus, in too many cases, celebrity activism becomes about the activist, her/his brand, and desire to be perceived as doing good, by helping the poor and victimized Africa. I'm not a purist  and ideologist on this issue.  I believe simply that humanitarianism is a good thing, but that  it must not become about ego and forget that people are people and always want to have as much control over their lives as possible even when they are powerless and in need of a great amount of help. Celebrities such as Bob Geldof forget that essential fact. They are too willing to play god or rather to celebrate their own accomplishments by looking for the starlight and showing a disdainful and crippling contempt for the realities of the people and the countries they believe they are saving from hell and from their own shortcomings