Southern Africa

Your own words can came back to haunt you. So learned South Africa’s Julius Malema, the controversial African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader expelled from the ANC for sowing disunity and bringing the ANC into disrepute last Wednesday. In what sounds like a sign of defeat and humiliation, the flamboyant Malema, who’s own firebrand […]

The simmering ethnic tensions between those who prefer a non-Oshiwambo speaking person to become the next president of Namibia after president Pohamba’s term expires in 2013, and those who view such a call as tribalism and against the country’s slogan of “One Namibia-one nation,” has reached another boiling point. The latest tension stems from the […]

In the debate over whether or not the World Cup was, on the whole, good for South Africa, it appears that those arguing in the affirmative have a little more evidence for their case. because when it comes to infrastructural development it appears that the government believes that the World Cup, and more to the […]

Here are a few stories that have caught my eye of late, with brief commentary as apt: In an interesting (but probably passing) change of direction, China is putting pressure on Sudan “to seek urgently the release of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the border state of South Kordofan.” China traditionally sees national […]

The Economist had a piece on South Africa in the latest issue that unintentionally contradicted itself. I usually try not to let others do my work for me, but these two paragraphs warrant regurgitating in full: The ANC has marked up some notable achievements. It enshrined civil and social rights in the constitution. It abolished […]

Call it the O-effect. Passing with flying colors, seventy-two South African girls from disadvantaged backgrounds graduated from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (the academy’s first graduates) in South Africa this past Saturday. True to the old adage that to educate a woman is to educate a nation, the queen of talk shows Oprah […]

Happy New Year, everyone. Before you look forward to 2012 it’s time to look back at South Africa’s 2011. 1. Summary of 2011 There were three issues that defined 2011 in South Africa. 1) By far the most significant of these was the controversy over the Protection of State Information Bill. For many years the […]

The year 2011 for Southern Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general, will probably be remembered for what did not happen in the light of the people-powered uprising and protests that swept across the globe. In the Arab world, in particular North Africa, what is being now referred to as the Arab Spring made 2011 a […]

Here are a few stories that I’ve been thinking about in recent days: A new report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), Africa and the Arab Spring: A New Era of Democratic Expectations, the first volume of the Africa Center’s new Special Report series, uses the Arab Spring as a lens through which […]

A couple of weeks back South African cricket legend Basil D’Oliviera passed away, presumably from complications due to the Parkinson’s disease from which he had suffered for many years. D’Oliviera is best known for his centrality in the crisis that bore his name, the “D’Oliviera Affair.” Unable to play cricket at the highest levels in […]

So the big news out of South Africa today is that Julius Malema, firebrand president of the ANC Youth League and general lightning rod for controversy has been suspended (or forced to “vacate his position”) for five years from the ANC. And for good measure the party also ousted the Youth League’s “arrogant” spokesman, Floyd […]

Posting has been light on my part because I have been in an almost constant state of travel of late. My apologies. And that travel continues tomorrow when I begin a trip that will ultimately take me to the Sport and the Global South conference to be held next Tuesday and Wednesday (November 15th and […]