Twenty-five years ago Paul Simon released his album Graceland, an album that not only became a worldwide hit, but massively expanded the audience of his collaborators, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and simultaneously provided exposure to South African music to millions around the globe. A new documentary (which I have as of yet been unable to see) explores not only the making of the album, but also some of the controversy surrounding it.

It might seem nearly impossible to imagine now, but while Graceland emerged as something of a feel-good album, for many it was anything but. In order to utilize Ladysmith Black Mambazo Simon essentially violated the cultural boycott that the South African government and other organizations in South Africa and across the globe advocated in an attempt further to isolate the Apartheid government, which in 1986 was perhaps at its most draconian.

At minimum, Simon displayed a great deal of naivete and consequently not a bit of arrogance in dealing with the maelstrom that surrounded Graceland. Some thought he was using Ladysmith Black Mambazo for his own purposes while others simply found his unwillingness to recognize why the cultural boycott was in place to be galling.

Graceland pretty perfectly embodies a grey area surrounding the cultural boycott. The most obvious violators engaged in egregious behaviors — for example willfully ignoring the boycott to play “Sin City” and then self-servingly claiming that their music was beyond politics when it was anything but, especially for the white regime that had enforced segregation in entertainment and sport as in every other element of South African life under apartheids both petty and grand. And perhaps the boycott was cast in too broad strokes, was too blunt an instrument that did not allow for fine differentiation or case-by-case assessments. And to be sure, Ladysmith Black Mambazo deserved to have its own agency in choosing how to address the injustices of its own country, and that getting its own music out was in itself utterly worthwhile.

Reasonable people can certainly disagree about these questions, especially as they have become historical questions. But at a minimum one hopes that Simon (and perhaps other artists who skirted the line) has become more thoughtful and more reflective about those times and what his work meant and did not mean in a time when the opposition to apartheid used blunt instruments because blunt instruments were what they had at their disposal.

Surely, you are not alone in carrying out this tradition of sitting African presidents and politicians seeking medical treatment abroad. The late Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua spent most of his last days abroad for medical reasons. The same story goes for former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who has his share of spending time abroad in search of better medical treatment. In Ghana, after having been involved in an auto accident in 2008, former president Kufuor flew abroad for a thorough medical check-up. So did Togo’s President Gnassingbe Eyadema who died while being evacuated for medical treatment abroad.

The same is also true that the point here is not that the world wants you dead, as you once proclaimed in your political rhetoric. Nor is it about whether you are “fit as a fiddle,” as your information minister put it to reporters. Certainly, I for one sincerely want to see you healthy and live beyond 100 yrs, but what does it say about Zimbabwe and the country’s health care system if the first citizen would rather seek medical treatment in foreign countries? What you are failing to grasp is that you as the president seeking medical treatment abroad is tantamount to a vote of no confidence in your own governing. What you are also failing to see is that there is a correlation between your governing and Zimbabwe’s dilapidated public health system.

But more importantly, I can’t help but wonder what goes on in your mind when lying in those well maintained hospital beds in Singapore with well trained doctors and health care workers (for gracious’ sake, I won’t blame you if you don’t think about all this, after all, you are sick). Do you think of the many million ordinary Zimbabweans who have no choice to seek this luxurious medical attention? Do you think of Zimbabwe’s children and elderly (just like you) who are dying due to shortage of medicine and well trained medical doctors in the country? Do you also ask yourself how and why they, your host country, can manage to maintain and run such hospital? Do you have similar hopes for Zimbabwe?

[Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo]

Last week there was a mini Twittersplosion. Rumors began to fly that Robert Mugabe, who had recently traveled to Singapore, was gravely ill. Some asserted that he was on the verge of death.

Te response was not exactly joy — most African observers are much like I am, they would like Mugabe to go; they do not necessarily want to publicly hope for his death. But the response was optimistic, sometimes almost giddy. On 9 April I wrote two Tweets in response (you can follow me @dcatafrica where I often post #FPAAfricaBlog) which read as follows:

Re. rumors that Mugabe is dying: remember, allegedly the Generals have still never saluted Tsvangirai. Does not bode well for near future.

I followed minutes later with the following:

In other words — Mugabe yielding power would be a good thing. His dying with no clear future leadership plans would not be.

My point was, and continues to be, that Mugabe’s departure would be a good thing for Zimbabweans if there is some sense of what happens next. But a vacuum in which Mugabe dies and there is a scramble for who will take a control, a scramble that would almost surely be decided not at the ballot box or through the logic of succession but rather by the men with guns, would likely be devastating and would not portend long-term stability. Morgan Tsvangirai might seem like the rightful leader of the country, but the odds of such a transition happening smoothly are long.

The rumors of Mugabe’s decline were premature. He returned to Harare and his spokesmen declared the wily old despot to be “fit as a fiddle.” Mugabe’s supporters took more than a little bit of pleasure in tweaking those who hoped that the rumors might have something to them. And Mugabe’s threats to live forever seem to many to be more than wishful thinking. But if Mugabe’s death was a myth, the concerns about his succession are not.

Fantastic video. Fantastic initiative. However, for those who follow conflict and terrorism in Central Africa like myself, we know Joseph Kony as only one rebel leader of many; the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) as only one rebel group of various others.

If you haven’t watched the video, and I am sure that is not many of you, Kony is alleged to be the first ‘bad guy’ target. This article is a very short piece to help Invisible Children in its future activities in targeting rebel groups operating in Central Africa, some operating in very close proximity to Kony’s LRA. And remember, I said ‘rebel groups’ and not rebel leaders because those who study terrorism know that like the Lernaean Hydra you can cut off the head of the snake, but often over time, two heads will grow back.

Without further ado and in no particular order:

1) Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR): Started in 2000, The FDLR continues to be dominated by leaders like Sylvestre Mudacumura, who personally have either been incriminated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and/or lead an internationally recognized terrorist organization. These acts of terrorism have killed hundreds of civilians in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Some of the FDLR’s biggest attacks include the raping and assaulting of at least 154 civilians from July 30 to August 3, 2010, in the town of Luvungi in North Kivu province, DRC. More recently, in January 2012, the FDLR killed 45, mostly women and children in a remote area of eastern Congo’s South Kivu province. More than 100,000 civilians have fled their homes since November.

2) Chadian armed group, the Front Populaire Pour le Redressement (FPR – Popular Front for Recovery): The FPR rebels, who arrived in the Central African Republic (CAR) from Chad in 2008, have continued to carry out sporadic attacks in parts of northern CAR as well as to recruit, mainly Fulani community members, and acquire weapons.

Fighting between government troops and rebels in recent months have forced thousands of people to flee their homes, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach them. According to unconfirmed press reports, four civilians were killed and several houses burnt in late December/early January when 300 FPR members attacked the town of Kabo. The ICRC proclaims that several villages in the northern part of the CAR, some 50 kilometers north of Kaga Bandoro, have been partially or completely destroyed since the end-January.

“Thousands of people have had to flee,” said Katharina Ritz, head of the ICRC delegation in Bangui. “They’ve lost everything: their houses, their crops, all their belongings.”

To also make sure the snake heads don’t grow back, more funding is needed in the DDR [Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration] process and SSR [Security Sector Reform] in various African countries.

The CAR is a perfect example. Margaret Vogt, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the United Nations (UN) Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the CAR told the UN Security Council in December 2011 that more US$19.3 million is required for the reinsertion and reintegration of former rebel fighters, with the budget for disarmament and demobilization operations estimated at $2.6 million.

Not cheap, but as the KONY 2012 video points out, definitely worth it.

Photo 1- courtesy of http://www.buzzfoto.com/2010/12/celebrities/this-week-join-the-outcry-for-congo/

Some of Malema’s hate-mouthed speeches include calling his opponents, especially the head of the opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) Hellen Zille, cockroaches, inciting a Zimbabwe style land grab, calling for the overthrow of the Botswana government, and vowing to “kill for” SA President Jacob Zuma, who he helped in dethroning former President Thabo Mbeki. True to his colors of rebelliousness and militancy, Malema tried to pull a Thabo Mbeki on his ally, turning against Zuma by publicly ridiculing him. This decision turned out to be a political miscalculation on the part of Malema. Jacob Zuma, a master firebrand himself, fired back in the form of the ANC disciplinary hearing, suspension and eventually the expulsion.

The impact of Malema’s expulsion on the ANC is still uncertain, but some people within the ANC and ANCYL are reportedly not happy about the decision and are already urging Malema to fight back. Why? Malema, despite his affluent lifestyle, for the most part is seen as the voice of the poor in South Africa. But for me, I see Malema as symptomatic of what is wrong with the South African leadership (or African leadership in general) because he appeals to the darker side of the South African democracy.

Wikipedia

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 Youth and Sport Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo’s (KK) outburst, when he called his fellow ministers “stupid Owambos” with “Boer mentality” in an interview with Insight Magazine’s Tileni Mongudhi a few weeks ago. In the Namibian and South African context, the term “Boer”, a Dutch and Afrikaans word for white Afrikaner farmers/settlers, is associated with oppression and apartheid.

Here is the deal: KK, who publicly called for the ruling party to nominate a non-Oshiwambo speaking candidate or a woman as the next president for Namibia, is also a staunch supporter of Hage Geingob, the main and obvious non-Oshiwambo speaking contender vying for the ruling party’s top ticket to become Namibia’s next president. Amid the backstabbing and veiled attacks, Geingob’s (who is also the VP of the SWAPO party) main competitor is turning out to be the party’s Secretary General and Justice Minister Pendukeni Ivula-Ithana, who is Oshiwambo-speaking.

The Sun newspaper reports that the president is very disturbed and had KK summoned to the State House to explain, a meeting attended by Prime Minister Nahas Angula, Deputy Prime Minsiter Marco Hausiku, Vice President, Dr Hage Geingob, SWAPO’s Secretary General, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, and her Deputy, Nangolo Mbumba. So far KK’s fate remains unknown, but apparently the meeting brought up raw feelings among the State House participants as Hage Geingob spoke his mind in an attempt to desperately save his chief surrogate, but also to make it clear that he is not happy with the way he is being treated by the party.

This is not KK’s first transgression. A few months before this latest incident, he hurled racial insults at a white reporter who asked him about the repatriation mission, which he led, for the return of Hereros’ and Namas’ skulls (victims of German genocide in Namibia) from Germany. Many Namibians cheered him for standing up against a white person- a “Boer” for that matter. It is the follow-up questioning to this previous incident that made him go ballistic; when asked whether he (KK) acted more as a Herero than a Minister during the skull repatriation mission, KK physically threaten the journalist and confiscated his voice recorder (which he described in military language as a captured enemy tool). True to military fashion, KK (through his lawyers) had the voice recorder erased by an expert outside Namibia.

If we are to believe KK’s own words that the president never reprimanded him when he insulted a white reporter before this latest incident, then the pertinent question here is, why is president Pohamba apparently bothered now? One assumption is that the President and some in the leadership of the ruling party SWAPO are reading KK’s outburst within the context of his support for Hage Geingob and his call for a non-Oshiwambo president, which they obviously view as tribalism.

Of course, Hage Geingob is Namibia’s former Prime Minister, who was removed from his position and relegated to a junior ministerial post by the founding President Sam Nujoma in a cabinet reshuffle in 2002. Instead of taking up his new junior ministerial position, Geingob packed his bags for a self-imposed exile in the U.S., where he worked for a Washington-based Africa think tank group. After his brief stay in the U.S., Hage Geingob returned to Namibia and made nice with his comrades. They reciprocated by giving him the position of Vice President of the SWAPO party. In the SWAPO party tradition, a VP position is a one horse race position to become the party’s nominee for the country’s number one position. As a VP of the ruling party, for a moment, Hage Geingob’s ambition to be the next president of Namibia was a sure thing, because whoever is the SWAPO party candidate would likely eventually win the national presidential election, since the ruling party currently enjoys overwhelming electoral support in the country. But some cliques in the party had a different plan and started to challenge the SWAPO party principle, which allows an automatic nomination of a VP as the sole presidential candidate without contest. Instead, they pitched for the Justice Minister Pendukeni Ithana, who so far seems to enjoy widespread support within the party, especially among the majority Oshiwambo-speaking members.

Public reaction to KK’s outburst is mixed, but his seeming frustration about Namibia being a fortified “Owambo administration” is tapping into the feelings of those who think that it is time for the ruling party to nominate a non-Oshiwambo president. Triggered by KK, the Namibian reports that SWANU president and member of Parliament Usutuaije Maamberua plans to ask Prime Minister Nahas Angula, “[how] it is that about 80 per cent or more of most heads of Government offices, ministries and agencies are from the same ethnic group.” True, twenty-one years into the country’s independence, Namibia’s government, especially key and strategic positions, is largely dominated by the ethnic Oshiwambo-speaking Namibians at all levels of the government. In all honesty, it is not the policy of the SWAPO government to staff the government with a single ethnic group, but the ruling party’s heavy reliance on its exiled cadres (when it comes to appointment of ministers, permanent secretaries, diplomats, members of parliament, and boards of directors) has resulted in the unintended consequence of having most ministers and other key government positions staffed from the Oshiwambo-speaking group (the dominant ethnic group in the ruling party and the country). This unfortunate reality can be partly attributed to the SWAPO leadership structure (whether the youth league, the pioneer movement, elders’ council, women’s council, Plan or SWAPO Politburo) in exile, which predominately (and still very much so today) consisted of members of the Oshiwambo-speaking ethnic group. Both the founding president Nujoma and the incumbent president Pohamba, with all good intent, tried to diversify their cabinets by bringing in people from other ethnic groups, but this process is happening at a trickle-down pace.

As usual, the President, Prime Minister Nahas Angula, and the speaker of the Parliament Theo-Ben Gurirab reportedly seized this opportunity to rally Namibians behind the country’s policy of “one Namibia-one nation,” urging and reminding Namibians to learn from other countries such as Rwanda, Angola, the DRC and so forth. Obviously (and rightly so), they see ethnicity and regionalism as barriers to Namibia’s policy of reconciliation and national unity. The blindside, however, is that they seem to be missing the opportunity to revisit the country’s diversity policy, including the way government appointments are handled. In other words, the answer is not the symbolism of reconciliation and unity, but concrete social mechanisms to use Namibia’s ethnic and racial diversity- their hopes, expectations and inspirations- in order to explain what it means to be a Namibian, including managing expectations, fighting corruption and nepotism, and self-enrichment schemes that are so rampant in the government. It’s called managing expectations in a cultural diverse society!

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 sovereignty as sacrosanct. But now it is their ox being gored and suddenly a fixed position on questions of national sovereignty seems foolish. Hopefully they keep this incident in mind the next time one of their client states commits brutality against its own people.

African Heads of State meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (EPA/Jacoline Prinsloo)

The African Union was supposed to decide on its leadership this week. Instead gridlock has set in. South Africa had hoped that its Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, would emerge victorious, but she has been unable to garner enough votes. As this story has developed I have been skeptical of whether or not Dlamini-Zuma could muster enough supports. Not because she is not qualified. But rather because South Africa occupies an interesting position on the continent. By virtually every measure it is the most powerful country on the continent, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. But that means that many Africans are wary of South Africa and want to push back against its pretensions to continental leadership. Or at least its pretensions to official positions of leadership. Culturally, economically, politically, and militarily the country is the de facto regional superpower.

Meanwhile Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has denounced the AU for recognizing Libya’s National Transitional Council at a recent summit. At the Harare airport, Mugabe levied accusations toward his African colleagues for being: “‘fronts’ for Western powers whose ‘criminal’ NATO bombardment of Libya helped lead to the killing of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, a former Mugabe ally.” Of course he did.

Finally, if you’re going to be anywhere near the Research Triangle in North Carolina this weekend, I’d encourage you to swing by the South East Regional Seminar in African Studies (SERSAS) and the South East Africanist Network (SEAN) Conference. The main program will take place on Saturday at the University of North Carolina’s Fedex Global Education Center. The conference theme is “Border Crossings, Migrations, and Interventions,” but panels will deviate from those themes. I’m on the panel and would love to meet any readers who might be in the area.

The ANC has marked up some notable achievements. It enshrined civil and social rights in the constitution. It abolished the death penalty. It has built more than 3m free or subsidised houses, and has brought clean water, sanitation and electricity to millions more. Every child now has a right to at least 12 years of education. More than 15m people, almost a third of the population, get some form of welfare. Severe malnutrition among children under five has been almost eradicated. Some 6m pupils get free school meals. Having at last accepted the link between HIV and AIDS, the ANC now has a grip on the epidemic, one of the world’s worst. Crime is coming down; the murder rate has fallen by half from its peak in 1994. The ANC has set up anti-corruption agencies in a proclaimed effort to bring corrupt people to book.

But for most South Africans, the stench of graft, patronage and greed surrounding the ruling party itself is now too strong. The romance, solidarity and heroism of the days of struggle have gone. In the popular mind, ANC people, from the president down, seem keener on power, status and ostentatious wealth than on improving the lot of the poor. Always a broad church, the ANC is riven with factionalism and in-fighting. Lip service is paid to the old ideals, but the party seems increasingly rudderless. It has lost its way.

It seems that the first of these paragraphs is hard to dismiss and the second does not hold up on the evidence. No one I know of in South Africa supports graft, patronage, or greed. But how can one possibly assert that the stench of those things “surrounding the party is now too strong” when the ANC will win the next national elections overwhelmingly and with a 60%+ tally? This is a peculiar and arithmetically-challenged definition of “most.” In fact, the first paragraph is empirically right and the second is empirically wrong.

Photo: Reuters

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 Winfrey spent US$40 million of her own fortune to build a girls-only school in South Africa.

The importance of education for girls in South Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general, cannot be overstated. Due to colonial policies and patriarchal traditional systems/beliefs (such as early marriage, teen pregnancies, and preferences for educating boys over girls), Africa’s women, especially those from poor backgrounds, lag behind in education and socio-economic mobility. Consequently, education for girls has proliferated (with good intention) in post-colonial Africa, largely as a result of UNICEF’s worldwide effort to invest in girls’ education. The notion, however, that boys from disadvantaged backgrounds somehow have better opportunities than their female counterparts is masking the staggering reality that many boys in South Africa (and other countries in Africa) are in prisons or streets (making a living from the streets) instead of graduating from colleges and universities. Is the preferred choice for educating and prioritizing girls endangering boys’ chance for education, especially those in rural areas who face the same hurdles as girls?

Nonetheless, this “O-Model” of education for success—which pumps a lot of resources into schools, equips them with state of the art facilities, and invests in qualified staff, hands-on management, and strong mentorship—indeed presents an historic opportunity for South Africa. So, there are good and obvious reasons for South Africa and other African governments to applaud, listen, and pay attention to OWLA’s achievement. It is a rare phenomenon for African schools for all Grade 12 students to pass and be accepted to universities in South Africa and abroad all at the same time. Oprah herself, in her celebratory comments, has hinted at working with the South African government and other African governments to promote education for the underprivileged.

But can this “O-Model” of education for success be replicated and emulated to address South Africa or any other sub-Saharan country’s educational crisis? The answer is both yes and no.

Yes because depilated schools, haphazard learning environments, and laissez-faire leadership and management style are what is failing kids from disadvantaged communities because they are trapped in these failing schools.

No because the O-Model focuses too much on the top performing students-those students who are academically talented; therefore, a struggling child from the same underprivileged background stands no chance to be admitted in the Oprah-like leadership academy/school.

This approach of pitting the top against the bottom is what is at the heart of the education crisis in South Africa and Africa in general. To be a struggling child (boy or girl) in the African education system is to be condemned to a life without opportunities or support. Instead of helping a struggling child by raising him/her to the level of an academically gifted student, for the most part resources (such as scholarships, bursaries, recognition, and other incentives) are spent on the top performing students or top performing schools.

What is the plight of a struggling child, an underachiever, in the African education system? Is he/she teachable or not? The answer is an affirmative yes. Every child is teachable and I believe that underachievers from poor communities, if provided opportunities at the same ferocity as what the O-Academy does, would turn out to be top achievers too.

1. Summary of 2011

There were three issues that defined 2011 in South Africa.

Demonstrations against the "Secrecy Bill". Source: Reuters

1) By far the most significant of these was the controversy over the Protection of State Information Bill. For many years the ANC’s critics — white, usually, though not always — have accused the party of having dictatorial tendencies. These accusations have by and large been nonsense. Until now. The Information Bill, which putatively protects state secrets from being released via the media — a canard if ever there was one — represents an Apartheid-style bill in post-apartheid clothing. If government has the ability to control, menace, and punish an independent media, that media ceases to be independent. Let’s say that you trust the current iteration of the ANC. And let’s say, fairly, that even as the party has had the necessary 2/3 of the vote, or close to it, to allow them unilaterally to amend the constitution, it has not done so. But whenever an act of government such as this passes a useful question to ask is not what this dispensation might do with it, but rather what a future, more draconian dispensation might do. The question is not whether one should trust this government. The question is whether to trust any potential future government.

What has been reassuring has been the extent to which the passage of the bill met with vibrant public dissent. Arguably civil society became more engaged with this issue than any other political question in the post-apartheid era. “Black Tuesday” protests both real and symbolic (in the form of wearing black and in many cases tape over one’s mouth) took place across the country and dominated the news cycle and brought out the best among journalists and public intellectuals. So far all of this protest was to little avail, but it is telling that South Africans did not passively take this news or gnash teeth and ball their fists impotently.

2) During the World War II era in the United States (and in other parts of the world) labor unions had tremendous potential leverage but chose not to exercise it, deciding instead to act for what they believe was the greater good. But once the war ended, so too did the gentleman’s agreement about mass strikes and as a result labor actions proliferated. The Public Sector Strikes that hammered South Africa throughout the country’s winter of labour discontent revealed both the extent of working class dissatisfaction with the ANC and served to reveal the hangover from the 2010 World Cup. By and large the unions chose not to strike during the World Cup the previous winter, but those chickens roosted this year and then some. COSATU may be in alliance with the ANC from an official governance standpoint. But the unions flexed their muscles throughout 2011, once again revealing that the tripartite Alliance might not be on all that sound footing.

3) The ANC’s very public rebuke of Julius Malema, the ANC Youth League’s enfant terrible, represents the latest act but not the last act in an ongoing drama. Malema stands, I’m going to assume, as the country’s Phoenix in waiting. Like Richard Nixon in the early 1960s Malema has vowed that he has exited politics. Trust me — whatever he says, Malema is not done with public life in South Africa. He is destined to rise from the ashes, and when he does, he will carry significant numbers of supporters with him. Maybe not enough to change the country’s political calculus, but enough to make the party hierarchy uncomfortable.

2. Most Unexpected Event

1) In a country where the unexpected is expected it is hard to identify one shocking event or incident. But for observers of South African sport 2011 was not a great year. The Springboks exited the World Cup in rather desultory fashion (though they did outplay Australia in every aspect of the game but the scoreboard, the scoreboard is the only measure that matters). Bafana Bafana was left on the outside looking in when the national team’s leadership did not realize that more than a tie was necessary to progress to the continent’s championship. And the Proteas? Well, they continue to be the best international cricket team never to assert its dominance and they don’t seem any closer to doing so now than they have since their return to international cricket.

But seriously — not knowing the rules of advancement for a major international tournament? Unforgivable.

2) I do know that many of you may not be as sports mad as I am. So the other big surprise, at least for me, was the anticlimactic way that Julius Malema stepped down from his perch at the ANC Youth League. Despite Malema’s Nixonian pronouncements that he’s done with public life, such disavowals are in the nature of the political phoenix. I’m willing to place wagers that we will, in fact, have Julius Malema to kick around in years to come.

3. Person/Group of the Year

There are three possibilities.

1) In a country where everything is political, especially that which isn’t, and that is so dominated by the ANC not only politically but culturally as well, is it any surprise that President Jacob Zuma stands at the top of this list? Love him, hate him, or tolerate him, Zuma is the essential figure in South African political life. It is quite possible that Zuma will face a political storm at the end of the year, but, assuming that he still holds on to power in the party he is likely to continue to maintain this spot for some time to come.

2) For sheer significance in a year in which a mass of public sector workers flexed some muscles and reminded people of the potentially outsized role of COSATU it is hard to overstate the importance of COSATU General Seceratary Zwelinzima Vavi. Vavi emerges every so often to speak, and when he does so, people listen. Vavi could prove to be a kingmaker. Keep an eye on him.

3) For all of the reasons stated above (and for more stated below) Julius Malema continues to be a vital figure in the country’s politics, no less so because of his avowal that he is exiting public life.

4. Forecast for 2012

1) Is the country looking at another Polokwane Moment? In December the ANC will meet in Magaung and in so doing will elect the party president and thus the almost certain winner of the country’s next national elections (and lots of other elected positions of importance). You will recall that in December 2007 the ANC ousted Thabo Mbeki from the party presidency, which began the process of his ultimate humiliation in stepping down from the presidency of the country months later. Jacob Zuma was the chief beneficiary of the events in Polokwane. But many in the party have not been especially comfortable with Zuma either personally or politically. And understandably so.

Will this dissatisfaction give way to a push similar to the one that pushed Mbeki from party leadership? The odds are against it, but Zuma has more detractors within the party than an ANC president should find comfortable. A further irony is that the ANC Youth League might be looking for Zuma’s scalp. There are rumors that Thabo Mbeki might be their man. How unfathomable would that be?

2) More on Malema: Indeed, I would not be surprised if he is visible by the time of the ANC’s party conference in Mangaung in December. Malema may for the time being be persona non grata in the ANC. But will that endure if there is enough of a public clamoring for Malema’s redemption? And if that does not happen, might Malema look toward another political party and another political party toward him?

3) And expect the ANC centenary to dominate the year. And for current party leaders to cloak themselves in that history. Whatever other predictions I make, this one, I’m pretty certain, will be right.

(By the way, in last year’s Year in Review post, which was about the continent as a whole, I think I did respectably in my forecast. The key? Much like with astrology or fortune telling, don’t get too specific!)

5. Best Book of 2011

In a year of good books about Africa, if I have to choose one to recommend, I would go with Stephen Chan’s fine Southern Africa: Old Treacheries and New Deceits, in which a respected academic expert on the region provides an accessible overview of the state of affairs in Southern Africa with particular emphasis on South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Have a great 2012, and thanks for reading.

In the Arab world, in particular North Africa, what is being now referred to as the Arab Spring made 2011 a tough year for the dictatorial regimes of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and of course Gaddafi, who was killed in Libya. In the Western world, a movement that started as Occupy Wall Street in New York stirred up similar protests across major cities in the US, Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Asian countries as citizens fought back against growing greed and inequality. Public anger over the debt crisis brought down Prime Minister George Papandreou and Silvio Berlusconi in Greece and Italy respectively.

Yet, despite the Southern African region’s high level of poverty, unemployment, and inequality, we did not see a wave of public anger similar to what we have seen across the globe. In a case study of five Southern African countries, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa has found that poverty and inequality is tearing apart Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Angola, with many citizens living on a mere US$1 per day. The irony here is that some of those countries, such as Namibia and South Africa, are resource-rich countries with some of the highest GDP in the world.

Amid this global backlash against greed and inequality, why were most Southern African streets (apart from isolated and sporadic protests in Malawi and Swaziland) empty, quiet, and business as usual? What happened to the militant spirit that has sent many young people toyi-toying in the streets of Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa against colonialism, poverty, and social injustice in the 60s and 80s?

One answer given for this widespread citizenry indifference in Southern African has been explained in terms of the belief that some of the governments in the region would not hesitate to use harsh measures if confronted by an Arab Spring-like mass action. True to this, in Zimbabwe some 45 activists were rounded up and charged with treason for watching a Mideast uprising video. In Malawi, the security force launched a violent crackdown on the protestors, leaving at least 18 protestors dead. In Swaziland, pro-democracy activists were banned, arrested, tear-gassed, and sprayed with water cannons.

It is also true that when the uprising was under way in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, none of the Southern Africa governments (well, South Africa maybe did but flip-flopped later to save face with the radicals within the ANC and other hawkish Africanists in the region) picked up a phone to urge Mubarak, Gadaffi, or Ben Ali to exercise restraint in dealing with the protestors. Instead, what we heard from Southern African governments was the usual song of complaint about Western interference in Africa’s internal matters.

But here is another explanation: Southern African citizens’ indifference can be explained in a “been there and done that” syndrome. This is because in some ways Southern Africa is a little bit ahead of North Africa in terms of democratization, meaning that most governments in Southern Africa are products of democracy and came to power through elections. Whereas North Africa might have been stable and economically advanced but did not have democratic governments. However, a distinctive characteristic of the southern African democracy is that not only we have a democracy without democrats but also a democracy without citizens. Southern Africa’s democracies did not and do not produce citizens but subjects controlled by governments due to the hierarchical nature of Southern African politics which demands obedience and loyalty from citizens. Why? Although they claim to have fought for democracy (such as SWAPO in Namibia, ANC in South Africa, MPLA in Angola, FRELIMO in Mozambique and ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe), most ruling parties in Southern Africa don’t operate as democrats. Their politics and decision making processes are highly centralized. By the way, the same can also be said about most opposition political parties too.

It is against the backlog of this unquestioning and uncritical citizenry, that we understand why Mugabe is still in power today and why most ruling parties in that region have won elections with landslide victory. This is why the Namibian president can place a moratorium on public discussions about the SWAPO presidential succession. And this is why the ANC-dominated National Assembly in South Africa can pass a law (reversing the gains made against apartheid repressive laws and policies) to limit free speech.

On the flip side, events in North Africa made the world forget (as the international media and world government shifted its attention to the Arab Spring) about Southern Africa, especially with regard to what’s going on in Zimbabwe and Malawi

SWAPO March

Here are a few predictions for 2012: The ruling party SWAPO’s 2012 election campaign to replace the incumbent Namibian president when his term expires is shaping up to be between Geingob (who is the vice president of SWAPO) and me Pendukeni Ithana (who is the secretary of SWAPO). One is believed to be a technocrat and the other a populist. But both are insiders, so expect less change here if either of them wins. What is clear, however, is that another potential split (this would be the third split if it happens) from the ruling party is looming as the in-fighting has already started. More is too come as we inch closer to Election Day.

Robert Mugabe

In Zimbabwe, it is clear that the opposition party MDC (MDC has lost the mojo, and has been weakened by in-fighting too) is not the party that will bring down Mugabe (as it was hoped), but expect a potential split within the ruling ZANU-PF party. As Mugabe’s health continues to deteriorate, we expect infighting as members vie for control and Mugabe’s position.

On the other hand, South Africa will continue walking the populist road and of course with less transparent governance. Unless restored, expect the worst from Malawi because its life line support, which is aid from the international community, has been cut off, which is going to make life difficult for ordinary citizens. Angola and Mozambique (riding on oil) will continue unabated because we don’t really hear much about these two countries in terms of international coverage anyway. The remaining question is will Swaziland eventually collapse economically, or has it already collapsed?

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 to view African politics. I think it is a bit too overdetermined to look at the Arab Spring and to look at ongoing crises in African politics and think that the one will fuel changes in the other. But the report is soundly done and certainly raises a number of important ideas and questions.

Deposed African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema believes he is finished in South African political life and plans to become a cattle farmer. Just remember, a phoenix has to fall before he can rise again. Don’t for one minute think that Malema’s turn in public life is complete.

Gbenga Sesan, the executive director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, has written a public letter to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. In it he asks some pretty pointed questions, including this one: “If the president can throw his wife a party in Australia and senators earn millions of dollars a year, why does the president keep asking us, the people, to make sacrifices?”

Recent revelations of obesity in South Africa raise the question: “Has Freedom Made Us Fat?” My guess would be that affluence more than freedom is the source of obesity in the richest country on the continent. Yes, tens of millions of South Africans do not share in the country’s wealth, but the country’s middle classes are doing quite well, and there has always been a link between weight and wealth on a continent where the former can actually serve as a status symbol indicating the latter.

According to Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times, “…the African Union force in Somalia has hardened into a war-fighting machine — and it seems to be winning the war.” Progress has clearly been excruciatingly slow but these advances coupled with more aggressive action from Kenyan troops reveals that the region’s leaders are not resigned to Somalia being a failed state forever.

I am late in getting my Year in Review post up for 2011, but for the time being, here is the Mail & Guardian’s slideshow of South Africa’s most memorable moments of the year.

Photo: UK Daily Mail

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 Apartheid South Africa, D’Oliviera moved to England where he made the national team, starkly revealing the absurdity of Apartheid sport and destroying any argument that black athletes could not compete in the elite ranks. In 1968 when England’s cricket team was set to tour South Africa. Prime Minister John Vorster refused to allow D’Oliviera to play in South Africa. England withdrew from the tour, accelerating South Africa’s isolation from the world of sport.

Less well known is that a few years earlier D’Oliviera led the non-racial South African Cricket Board of Control (Sacboc) national team on a tour of East Africa. While the SACBOC team did not include any white players, who of their own volition refused to participate in Sacboc, D’Oliviera’s squad was the most representative in the history of the sport in South Africa until the end of sporting isolation in the 1990s.

So what to make of these decisions? They probably will provide a Rorschach test that will confirm whatever the beholder believes about the ANC. Some possible interpretations (note that not all of these are mutually exclusive):

Ah ha! Malema finally got what was coming to him. It has been evident for some time that Malema was going to receive some sort of punishment. This at least was decisive.

That the ANC is unwilling to acept dissent and thus is another sign of how far the party has come from the dreams of 1994.

That the ANC is unwilling to accept a certain kind of dissent and behavior that does harm to the party, and it took the proper action as parties in democracies around the world do all the time. After all, there is a reason why the position of party whip exists just about everywhere.

That in one fell swoop the ANC hierarchy has removed its greatest potential internal challenger. Jacob Zuma may have to face internecine struggles down the road for control of the party but Malema won’t be among those looking to wrest control from him. Of course now Malema may be able to parlay free agency into power. Is it absurd to think that the Democratic Alliance (DA) might go after Malema? It would seem so, except in South African politics there may be no scenario so absurd that it cannot happen. And there would be nothing absurd about the Congress of the people (COPE) going after Malema. Hell, for the time being COPE remains an agglomeration of egos as much as a political party. Why not add ne more to the cocktail and stir?

Whatever the interpretation, for the time at least, the old guard holds the upper hand over the Youth League and they have won decisively. Whatever dreams Malema might have had of a 1940s-style Mandela-Tambo-Sisulu Young Turks moment seems to have passed.

That said, only a fool believes that Malema will slink away with his head bowed. Malema is not the slinking type. I expect some sort of bombastic verbal throwdown any time now. It may not be all that edifying, but I expect that South African politics will be pretty entertaining for the next few days, weeks, months, and years. Then again, ’twas always thus, and always thus shall be.