South Africa

There can be little doubt that the past year has been the most trying in Thabo Mbeki’s oft-tumultuous presidency. Tonight he gave his State of the Union address before parliament. He certainly had plenty of fodder from which to work: The electricity crisis, crime, poverty, the daunting prospect of hosting the 2010 World Cup, and simply a general sense of malaise.

Mbeki provided a positive spin, called for the nation to pull together to confront the issues facing South Africa, and praised his countrymen for their resilience in the face of recent difficulties, especially the power delivery nightmare.

The response to Mbeki’s optimism has been skepticism in many, but far from all, circles. Helen Zille,  leader of the Democratic Alliance, whose job it is to be critical, took her job seriously, criticizing the president for “business as usual.” The editors of The Mail & Guardian approached Mbeki’s address fatalistically as did other observers. One imagines that those critics were likely not placated by Mbeki’s address and that Mbeki’s supporters found much with which to be pleased. In other words, status quo ante is likely to prevail.

According to Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Zimbabwe’s inflation hit a record 26 470,8% in November 2007. These sorts of numbers defy commentary. They defy understanding.

A number of stories caught my attention this weekend. Here are a few of them, with brief commentary as appropriate:

The Makana Football Association, which operated surreptitiously on Robben Island among the political prisoners has achieved recognition from FIFA, the sport’s governing body. A feature film, More Than Just a Game, starring Tsotsi’s Presley Chweneyagae, is to be released in South Africa in the next few weeks.

Thabo Mbeki recently has been stepping up his advocacy of a trilateral free trade area between South Africa, India, and Brazil. Mbeki believes that this trade bloc will give these leading nations in the developing world a stronger hand in trades with the World Trade Organization and will focus on addressing poverty and underdevelopment in the three countries and within the regional spheres that they dominate.

The Mail & Guardian’s “ZA @ Play” has an interview with Mark Gevisser, the respected observer of South African politics whose forthcoming book Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred is highly anticipated. The interview is fairly anodyne, truth be told, but the book should stand as a definitive early treatment of Thabo Mbeki’s life if it can avoid the pitfalls of polemicism and advocacy to which virtually all of the books on Mbeki up to now have succumbed. 

Finally, a bit of a controversy has enveloped one of my old stomping grounds, Rhodes University. Last year Anne Warmenhoven submitted a doctoral thesis to Rhodes’ psychology department, which approved the dissertation and granted Warmenhoven the PhD. Her topic is the late disgraced former Proteas captain Hansie Cronje. But the dissertation apparently is nowhere to be found, apparently because members of Cronje’s family only agreed to speak with Warmwnhoven under conditions of secrecy. Obviously this goes against every principle of academic freedom and openness, not to mention ideals of transparency that are supposed to be a hallmark of the New South Africa.

Some states confront economic calamities. Some confront political tyranny. And in some cases the latter fuels the former. Such is the case in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship quite clearly has exacerbated the country’s dire economic straits. The country’s citizens are facing acute hunger that stems from the country virtually running out of bread because grain shortages have led to the closing of bakeries. Indicative of the precarious state of public health, Bulawayo has only two dialysis machines, and those have broken down. Zimbabwe’s parliament has panicked (and possibly allowed Mugabe’s anti-foreign rhetoric to fuel its policies) by enacting the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Bill, which mandates that Zimbabweans must own a majority of foreign-run firms. This is likely only to fuel further withdrawals from capital on the part of companies and countries whose status in Zim was precarious to begin with. And, naturally, Mugabe continues to threaten further nationalization of the economy. In spite of all of these awful tidings, it is remarkable that some Zimbabweans still hold out hope, possibly because hope is all that remains.

Whatever progress Thabo Mbeki’s moderation might have made, it clearly is not enough and is likely to have little practical effect. Perhaps this is why Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade on Monday announced that he plans to travel to Zimbabwe this month to meet with Mugabe to recommend multilateral mediation by African heads of state. Does Wade’s plan represent more window dressing? The creation of a new echo chamber? An empty and ultimately futile gesture? Possibly. But at this point gestures are better than silence and acquiescence. Wade’s actions may represent an attempt to tweak his occasional rival Mbeki, but if it takes a clash of egos to push action on behalf of Zimbabwe’s people, so be it.

From a Medical Research Council report on children’s health issues in South Africa:

Every year almost 23,000 South African babies die in their first month of life, yet one in five of these deaths could be avoided with better education, and relatively inexpensive and easily implemented changes in healthcare, says a new study by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

“The bad news is that, according to the report, ‘one in five deaths could have been clearly avoided’, and inequalities are also highlighted, with avoidable deaths being twice as common in rural areas,” said Joy Lawn, Senior Policy and Research Advisor at Saving Newborn Lives, a programme run by Save the Children, an international non-governmental organisation for children’s rights, in the foreword to the report.

“The good news is that these deaths are not complex or expensive to prevent - improving the quality of care during childbirth is a top priority that would also save mothers’ lives and reduce long-term disabilities in children,” Lawn commented. 

This latter news, of course, is what South Africans must work to bring to fruition. These issues are tied in with questions of opportunity and access that South Africa also struggles to address.

Africans North-to-South, East-to-West are hyper-wary of foreign encroachments. This should come as no surprise after the dual destabilizing phenomena of western imperialism and the Cold War threw Africa into paroxysms of chaos from which it has not ever fully recovered. So despite (or perhaps because of) the myriad examples of China’s increased chumminess with Africa (which I have written about fairly extensively at this blog), including heightened interest from Chinese entrepeneurs, some Africans are increasingly concerned that this exploding Chinese interest just represents old wine in new skins, neo-colonialism from the east rather than the West.

Economic development in Africa can be a daunting concept. Countries with little infrastructural foundation are difficult to penetrate, and one of the key dilemmas comes with where to start. Food security, political instability, military conflict and crime, economic chaos — these problems can make building roads and bridges and phone networks nearly impossible to conceive, never mind to execute.

Perhaps the best way to develop larger infrastucture is to start small. At least this is the argument of Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (and a former college classmate of your faithful scribe), in The Boston Globe. He discusses the case of Democratic Republic of the Congo entrepreneur Alieu Conteh, who founded the cellular telephone company that became Vodacom Congo:

His success is an example of a new strategy for building infrastructure in Africa that might revolutionize the continent. Called “incremental infrastructure,” the idea is to build essential facilities — telephone networks, power grids, roads — in small pieces using private investment, instead of relying on large, centrally planned, government-run projects. . . .

The infrastructure challenges most African nations face are enormous. Just to meet sub-Saharan Africa’s current power demands, for example, could cost $70 billion in new power plants — even more if African nations begin using power to process minerals locally instead of exporting them to China, North America, and Europe. But the success of entrepreneurs like Alieu Conteh suggests that African infrastructure is a big problem that demands a small solution.

We need to be wary of panaceas, of course. Big solutions and small solutions are necessary throughout Africa, but Zuckerman makes an important case inasmuch as executed properly, small solutions can become big ones, and by growing organically can help provide the development Africa most needs.

The South African wine industry is burgeoning and has been for several years. Wine exported from the fertile terroir of the lush Western Cape vinyards can be found in any city in the United States, and indeed, even in smaller communities the occasional gem can be found with “Product of South Africa” stamped on the side. I am something of a reverse wine snob inasmuch as if i can find it, I prefer South African wines, and then will choose wines from the Southern hemisphere over those from more highly regarded wine strongholds such as France, Italy, or California.

That said, my esoteric wine tastes do not come without at least a little bit of concern. Wine is, virtually by definition, a stronghold of privilege. In South Africa the meanings of this privilege are reenforced ny the privilege of race — wine is in South Africa an endeavor nor only of privilege, but of white privilege, with all of the ramifications that implies.

 But as in many areas dominated by white South Africans blacks are beginning to make inroads. The process has been slow, but both the industry and the government have worked to encourage black involvement in all aspects of winemaking. Today’s LA Times has an article about Ntsiki Biyela, a Zulu woman who has cracked open doors for so long closed to her. Biyela has had to overcome skepticism not only within her new world, but also at home among family and friends to whom winemaking is alien and at times alienating.

Transformation is going to take a long time in South Africa. But it is encouraging to see that even the most privileged bastions are opening their doors, however slowly.

Privation connected to poverty and vulnerability to climate change is wreaking havoc throughout the continent. Lesotho continues to suffer from drought-fueled food shortages. The droughts have also affected Swaziland and South Africa. The economic crisis in Swaziland has led to increased sex trafficking among children as well as women. Informal settlements in Namibia are embody hell on earth. Climate change is leading to an increase in malaria cases in Kenya.

 The news of the increased UN-African Union peacekeeping presence has raised hopes of humanitarian relief for the people of Darfur. Sudan claims that it will support the troop presence. We;ll see how long Khartoum’s conciliatory attitude lasts. Some Sudanese, meanwhile, are looking to South Africa for a blueprint for peace.

At Foreign Policy Stephan Faris worries that the boomlet that parts of Africa appear to be enjoying might be chimerical, with oil fueling another manifestation of the resource curse. The Council for Foreign Relations explores the process of ”hunting for elusive peace.” Despite these real concerns, there also is real progress on parts of the continent, as Kofi Annan argues in the Mail & Guardian.

At The New Republic Eliza Griswold analyzes the Somalia crisis as “the other failed invasion,” which is problematic inasmuch as viewing Africa through the prism of Iraq manages to be both too Western-centric while at the same time allowing Iraq to disproportionately warp our views of other issues.

In order to address the mindboggling inflation rate in Zimbabwe (is it really possible that it could reach 100,000% by the end of the year?) the government has issued  a Z$200,000 note worth $1 US. Meanwhile, add water shortages to the daily sufferings of the people of Zim.  

In this week’s New York Times Book Review, John Donnelly, who covers global health and the environment for The Boston Globe, has written a favorable review of Helen Epstein’s The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS. An important book on a vital topic, The Invisible Cure posits that the best solutions to the AIDS crisis in Africa will come from Africans, an argument put forth by many in the development community as well. Of course an Africa for Africans by Africans has been the cri de couer of the continent since independence. But the Pan African dream, the African Renaissance, a solution to the continent’s problems, will not come until good governance, transparency, and democratization are all priorities across the continent, and not just in a few scattered pockets.