Last Monday, August 9, 2010, Rwanda’s incumbent President Paul Kagame scored another landslide similar to his margin of victory in 2003. In Namibia, the ruling Swapo party smashed a fifth tsunami-like victory this past November. South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the Liberation Front of […]
International friendlies in the immediate aftermath of the World Cup have to mean the least of all friendlies. Nonetheless, Bafana Bafana defeating Ghana’s Black Stars 1-0 in Pitso Mosimane’s coaching debut has to mean something, right?
Two grim stories are continuing to develop in Central Africa. In Rwanda, just a couple of days after Paul Kagame’s practically pre-ordained re-election a grenade went off in Kigali, wounding a score of people. It is not yet known if the attack is connected to the election, which observers noted was free of violence, though […]
Paul Kagame’s landslide victory in Monday’s presidential elections highlights Africa’s multiparty democracy problems. Across the continent elections are predictable, and continue to produce landslides victories for ruling parties. According to media reports, Kagame received 93 per cent of the votes in an election criticized for being marred by political intimidation, repression and violence. But more […]
The newest issue of The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs is out, and the theme of its “Forum” section, which leads off each issue and provides the cover stories, is “Match Point: Sports, Nationalism, and Diplomacy.” It includes an article by yours truly, “The Death of Doubt? Sport, Race, and Nationalism in the New South […]
I guess it is understandable that the narrative about Rwandan politics is dominated by the aftermath of the 1994 genocide and that the prevailing narrative ignores most of what happened before and has happened since (hint: violence did not just spring from the ether in April 1994). But the feel-good post-1994 narrative is not the […]
Those are not my words, but a quote attributed to Patrick Karegeya (the former Rwandan intelligence chief who was jailed twice, stripped of his colonel rank, and forced into exile by the Kagame government) calling for the defeat of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Kagame, the rebel-hero who defeated the genocidal government in July 1994, […]
Stories that have crossed my desk in recent days with brief commentary as applicable: I think there is no getting around it. ANC Youth League president Julius Malema is a South African politics version of Rasputin: it is seemingly impossible to kill his career, even by self-inflicted wounds. Obvious But It Probably Had To be […]
I was going to let this pass, but after some thoughts I am left puzzled as to why a country teetering on the verge of economic collapse and political turmoil would – out of the blue – conduct this kind of publicity stunt. The only conclusion that I can come up is that this seems […]
Kenyans appear to have overwhelmingly approved the country’s proposed new constitution with about 65% support in preliminary tallies. More important, perhaps, is the fact that the referendum appears to have gone off peacefully and without a hitch.
You probably already heard this, but at the International Court in Hague where she testified in the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Naomi Campbell confirmed receiving a gift of “dirty-looking stones” in 1997. These dirty-looking stones turned out to be precious diamonds, prosecutors believed to be Charles Taylor’s “blood diamonds, which fueled Sierra […]
Let’s play a game! How many pernicious African stereotypes can you find in this Leigh Montville article from Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago on the death of Sudanese basketball player Manute Bol? (Hint: The number is alarmingly high for a quite short piece.)
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