South Africa

South Africa’s unmatched political cartoonist Zapiro has caused quite a stir, infuriating the Jacob Zuma wing of the African National Congress over this controversial cartoon depicting various wings of the ANC holding down the justice system, depicted as a woman struggling to break free, as Jacob Zuma prepares to, well, rape her.

[Zapiro, Sunday Times, 7 September 2008] 

Invoking Zuma’s legal troubles, including his past rape charges, as well as the allegations that Zuma and his supporters are fighting hard to undermine the country’s legal system, the cartoon is unquestionably edgy. It represents a blistering, no-holds-barred commentary on the ANC president. I can certainly see the argument that the cartoon crosses the boundaries of taste.

But I cannot accept that the cartoon in and of itself is actionable (Zuma is considering pursuing legal action), that Zapiro owes COSATU or anyone else depicted in the cartoon an apology, or that Zapiro’s freedom to publish, to agitate, to accuse, or to criticize ought to be curtailed. Media freedom is sacrosanct in free societies, and ought to be especially cherished in South Africa where the apartheid government notoriously cracked down on and censored the media. By all means, respond to Zapiro. Argue with him. Disagree. Defend Zuma and his allies. But do not threaten to crack down on Zapiro or the media in which he publishes. South Africans, of all people, know better.

The Cape Argus on January 23, 2008, republished my latest Foreign Policy Association think piece under the title “Signs of a Magnificent Catastrophe.” (Pdf file) The piece appears smack-dab in the middle of the page. You can also track down a copy of Wednesday’s editions as well.

It appears that some observers are finally beginning to counteract the shallow, facile narrative that overtook the analysis of the events in Kenya over the last couple of weeks. Caroline Elkins’ piece in The Washington Post this past weekend provided a model of how a historical analysis of the current events in Kenya ought to be framed. If Elkins rightly sees the colonial past as a major contributor to Kenya’s current political woes, IRIN shows how the economy equally plays a role. In their report for Bloomberg Paul Richardson and Antony Sguazzin explain the ways inwhich a multiplicity of factors contribute to Kenya’s destabilization, of which ethnicity is only one. Stephanie Hanson has also provided a useful asessment for the Council on Foreign Relations.

John Carlin, former South Africa correspondent for the London Independent attended the ANC’s Polokwane conference for South Africa’s Independent Newspapers. In a column in that capacity, Carlin brings up a recent article on Zuma in London’s Daily Mail. Carlin properly castigates the Daily Mail’s predictably retrograde tone:

The Daily Mail is a vibrantly successful London newspaper that makes its money from nourishing the vulgar appetites and narrow prejudices of Middle England.

This week it published an article about Jacob Zuma that began with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink redramatisation of the before, during and after of the famous shower scene; went on to make some jokes about all the wives and all the children, and generally portrayed the new ANC president as a machinegun-wielding, communist, Zulu warrior who would expropriate white farms and - horrors - set a-tremble the 220 000 British citizens who have bought second homes in South Africa.

Simplistic though well-enough-written crap, the story (headline: “Machinegun man takes over ANC God help the Rainbow Nation”) does Mail readers the service of confirming their dumb conviction that Africa is an irredeemably barbaric place and gives them a jolly good chuckle into the bargain.

And yet, Carlin notes:

Such tomfoolery could be brushed aside easily enough were it not for the fact that it offers an insight however caricaturishly extreme into a real and very serious problem that South Africa is going to have to confront, and soon, in terms of the way it is perceived in the rest of the world in these outrageously globalised, interdependent times.

Even a bind squirrel is lucky enough to stumble on an acorn now and then, and in the midst of perpetuating his newspaper’s blinkered views of Africa, Andrew Malone appears to have so stumbled. But it is alarming, though hardly surprising, that such views prevail even in London to the point where depicting Africa in such Dark Continent terms continues to have currency.

Carlin’s article, which starts with so much promise, somewhat sputters to an end. His ultimate conclusion is that Thabo Mbeki, in order to firm up South Africa’s standing in the world, “should take advantage of these turbulent political times finally to fire the health minister [Manto Tshabalala-Msimang] and the commissioner of police [Jackie Selebi].” Execrable as the performances of these two have been, and as salutary as firing them might be, as a climax for the column, his proposed solution doesn’t quite jibe. Yes, firing Tshabalala-Msimang and Jackie Selebi is overdue. But one would think that Carlin would have a larger vision for South Africa to present to counter the vacuous puffery of the Andrew malones of the world. As it stands, Carlin’s solutions fall into the category of necessary but not sufficient proposals.

Just an FYI: An Economist correspondent from New Zealand has been posting a daily diary from South Africa this week. He introduces himself:

JUST to clear up any misconceptions: I am not, and have never been, The Economist’s South Africa correspondent. The extent to which I am not may soon become obvious: still, this point is best made at the outset, as someone else’s reputation is at stake here.

Neither am I just a tourist, though: I’m here to carry out research on behalf of The Economist’s guide to Johannesburg, which I have edited, from London, for a couple of years now. Past users may be relieved to know that I don’t actually write the guide—the aforementioned correspondent takes that role. But that with which you work, it is perhaps wise to know, and if nothing else, my employer’s august name tends to open doors that might otherwise stay shut.

There are a few useful insights, some views that an outsider probably finds insightful but are fairly banal, and some fairly jejune commentary, but the whole thing is worth a quick read as travelogue.

Two reviews recently appeared of Mark Gevisser’s mammoth new biography, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. Both make clear that Gevisser has produced an essential book that not only provides the deepest understanding of its subject to date, but that also serves to place Mbeki in the context of the country’s history and that history within the framework of Mbeki’s life. The Economist’s review is here and Financial Times’  is here.

This feature on Thabo Mbeki’s relationship with the media caught my eye this morning. Essentially the Mail & Guardian asked two prominent South African writers, William Gumede and Ronald Suresh Roberts, to assess that issue, and their independent conclusions are, I think, telling. Gumede believes that Mbeki brings most of his difficulties on himself. Roberts aims most of his criticisms at the media. Neither is exactly wrong. But the approach each takes perhaps inadvertently captures the divide in South African politics and within the African National Congress today.

This feature on Thabo Mbeki’s relationship with the media caught my eye this morning. Essentially the Mail & Guardian asked two prominent South African writers, William Gumede and Ronald Suresh Roberts, to assess that issue, and their independent conclusions are, I think, telling. Gumede believes that Mbeki brings most of his difficulties on himself. Roberts aims most of his criticisms at the media. Neither is exactly wrong. But the approach each takes perhaps inadvertently captures the divide in South African politics and within the African National Congress today.

The Mo Ibrahim Prize  will go to Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique who served from 1986 to 2005 and helped to end that country’s civil war and oversaw the transition to peace. The list of finalists, in addition to Chissano, included:

Benjamin William Mkapa (Tanzania)
Domitien Ndayizeye (Burundi)
Sam Nujoma (Namibia)
El-Hadj Bonfoh Abbass (Togo)
Gnassingbe Eyadema (Togo)
Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya (Mauritania)
Elson Bakili Muluzi (Malawi)
Azali Assoumani (Comoros)
Abdiqassim Salad Hassan (Somalia)
Mathieu Kerekou (Benin)
Albert Rene (Seychelles)
Henrique Rosa (Guinea-Bissau)

Chissano is not an uncontroversial choice. His son has been implicated in the death of journalist Carlos Cardoso, a progressive Mozambican journalist who was murdered in 2000, though Joaquim Chissano has never been connected to the death of the journalist who was often critical of his administration.

NPR has a feature on how Zimbabwe represents inhospitable terrain for journalists. One journalist explores why:

In Zimbabwe, practicing journalism is forbidden. Reporters caught working without government permission face beatings, long prison sentences, or worse. The job becomes especially perilous when the story about the local police force, focusing on police brutality

So why do reporters like myself take the risk? Some do it for the thrill, others for the fame. Others do it because they knew Zimbabwe before it became the police state dictatorship it is today and they feel morally obligated. I do it because I know a lot of Zimbabweans. They are wonderful people, who don’t have a voice to tell their stories. I also do it because I can.

I certainly wonder what will happen the next time I am in Zimbabwe. Of course there is an element of self-aggrandizement in the speculation — the odds, after all, are that nothing will happen. At the same time, it would not take more than a few seconds of snooping and all of my identities would strip away — professor, American, etc. — and I’d be marked down into one category, however much I denied it: Journalist, and a hostile one at that.

Hostile, of course, meaning to Robert Mugabe and his regime, and not to Zimbabwe and its people.  But in any authoritarian state, opposing the leader is tantamount to opposing the state. Oppressive states always silence journalists and other potential critics, especially outsiders, if it is at all possible to do so. Information is dangerous for people like Mugabe, who accuse his critics of trafficking in untruths. The stronger the accusation the more likely it is that the targets of his ire have identified real truths, which are the most damning.