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Is Zuma prolonging the inevitable or is strategy workable?
The ANC President, Jacob Zuma, faces serious charges of racketeering, corruption, fraud and tax evasion. If found guilty, he could go to jail for a long period — if his is handled as a normal case. But, as things stand now, Zuma’s is not a normal case; it possesses several built-in contradictions.
Obama, nuclear weapons and the race factor
In early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The indiscriminate damage of life and property was immeasurable. It was a massive collective punishment, a classic case of the power of modern civilisation without its mercy. Ever since, the world has been haunted by two questions. Was the use of nuclear devices necessary? Would the US have used nuclear weapons against white Germany? Critics remain deeply divided.
Our country in the eyes of South Africa
Since the demise of apartheid, there has been a remarkable upsurge of interaction between Kenya and South Africa. Despite this rise in people-to-people contact, one depicts a lingering sense of "unease" at the governmental and the SA news media levels. Several instances come to mind.
Continent's courtship with superpowers
China's success in becoming the preferred trade partner of several African states was a Western concern initially when it referred to a handful of states such as Sudan and Zimbabwe. It became downright alarming when the list started to include resource-rich countries such as the DRC, Angola and South Africa.
Obama has set US black record
Few people know precisely what Barack Obama's position is on various issues that are pressing to Americans and humanity. What is known is that a black man has emerged from nowhere and is in a position only a step away from the most powerful office in the world. This is a remarkable feat in a society where a black person is traditionally looked down upon.
Britain has played role in woes Zimbabwe faces
The current Zimbabwe crisis is a crime against humanity; it should not be happening in the 21st century. Yet, it may be feeble-minded to believe that the country's woes are due to one 'madman', Robert Mugabe. Britain may be just as implicated in the disaster as Mugabe.
Mugabe's war with UK is decades-old
The Anglo-American decision to punish the country indiscriminately convinced Mugabe that the British agenda was to oust him and install the MDC to reverse his policies, especially on land. To Mugabe, the current crisis is a struggle against re-colonisation; losing it is not an option. Many African leaders, perhaps including Thabo Mbeki, are sympathetic to the view that the Zimbabwe elections are a war within a bigger war.
Ominous forces behind SA chaos
That xenophobia has always existed in post-apartheid South Africa is not in doubt. But little is known of what ignited the recent wave of xenophobic violence. Its intensity and rapid spread also baffled all, including the intelligence community.
Where is Mandela's voice in SA attacks?
Xenophobia is not new to SA. Anti-foreigner attacks have occurred previously; the Somali have complained about it for years. What is unprecedented is its intensity and scope. South Africans have responded to the heightened violence by launching an animated campaign against xenophobia. Public figures have spoken out in its condemnation. So have non-governmental organisations and leaders.
Global Africa and the concept of 'near-abroad'
Curtailment of Anglo-American influence in Zimbabwe is a higher SA foreign policy priority than human rights and democracy. It is not that democracy and human rights are irrelevant; it is that, in context of Western intrusions, those objectives are as dry as dust.
Lessons from US passport scandal
Last month a feisty uproar erupted over a claim that unauthorised US State Department contract personnel had "poked their noses" into the passport files of the three leading presidential contenders. Two of the accused lost their jobs over the matter and further investigations were ongoing.
On Obama - Why Black People Are Not Optimistic
John F Kennedy steered America away from believing that Blackness was a badge of perpetual underclass. Lyndon B Johnson pushed that process a step further by inventing affirmative action. Obama could go one more step by apologising to Global Africa for centuries of American slavery and racial abuse. For that alone, he shall not have lived in vain.
Kenya -- The way forward for our leadership
It is critical that Kenya's leadership faces the problem of youth. Show me a country that is saturated with unemployed, able-bodied and substantially educated youth and I will show you a country that is sitting on a time bomb. As it stands now, that country is Kenya. Visit any Kenyan town and, invariably, you will witness awesome unemployment.
Perceptions of Zuma to affect SA globally
Now that Jacob Zuma is practically South Africa's President-designate, perceptions of him have national implications. Unfortunately, Zuma's political circumstances for the past several years have compelled him to resort to contradictory behaviour. Will the real Zuma please stand up? After dismissal as the country's Deputy President in 2005, Zuma faced a do-or-die political crisis that called for unorthodoxy.
Castro was key in South Africa's liberation
Clearly, Castro's Cuba had much to do with the liberation of Southern Africa. And all Cuba expected in return was for its soldiers to be allowed to "bring home the remains of their dead". Indeed, Mandela meant every word in stating that Castro had played a crucial role in his nation's liberation.
Foreign interests in Kenya's crisis raising eyebrows
An increasing number of analysts are now convinced that the current crisis in Kenya is not derived from ethnic hatred; it is due to politicised ethnicity. Politicians have conveniently contaminated ethnicity to fulfil their personal ambitions. And the contesting political forces have found themselves hand-in-hand with like-minded external allies.
Lessons in Australia's apology to Aborigines
On Wednesday, February 13, 2008, the Government of Australia will formally apologise to the Aborigines for historical maltreatment. The apology aims at launching a new relationship between Australia and its impoverished minority. Once trust and mutual respect are established, both sides can work together to bridge the bitter social divide.
Race factor in US presidential race
Two weeks ago, the United States presidential hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton, triggered a storm of criticism for asserting that Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality was realised only after President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To the unsuspecting, this statement would probably have been entirely harmless.
British land agreements in Kenya and Zimbabwe with locals a mockery
Land issue has been at the core of Zimbabwe’s political woes. Smith was deeply committed to a constituency of white farmers, which was historically favoured by allocation of the country’s fertile land to a 275,000-strong white minority. The remaining half of the land belonged to five million Blacks. This was the political reality that set the stage for the political rise of Mugabe. Since Rhodesia was a British colony, was Mugabe ultimately a British creation?
Africa's case of the 'walking wounded'
Both Jacob Zuma and Raila Odinga have been dismissed as reckless politicians. Yet, last week Raila nearly wrested the presidency. Perhaps Zuma's victory as president of the ANC 10 days earlier should have heralded political danger to Mwai Kibaki's strategists.
Ian Smith's defiance was a symbol of bigger reality
Smith's illusion of 'no-black-rule in a thousand years' was sheer madness. In one decade alone since Ghana's independence in 1957, virtually all Black Africa had attained independence. The 'winds of change' had indeed swept across the continent, but the white supremacists of Southern Africa remained hypnotised by a notion of a buffer African Mason-Dixon Line along Angola, Mozambique and Southern Rhodesia.
Global eye focused on SA power transition
Next month the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, is scheduled to meet in the City of Polokwane to choose its leader. As the country's dominant party, the chosen leader will become the nation's head of state after the 2009 presidential race.
Apartheid cases and reparation
In the course of next year, the United States Supreme Court will make a crucial ruling. It will determine whether or not to hear an appeal against a New York court's recent ruling to reinstate a lawsuit to hold large multinational corporations (MNCs) liable for their racist actions in apartheid South Africa. The defendants include the world's giants: Barclays, Citicorp, Mercedes-Benz, IBM, Shell and General Motors, all Western-based.
African Diaspora's potential untapped
Despite these positive developments, ties with the Diaspora are still embryonic. It remains a fact that the full import of the African Diaspora for Africa remains grossly unexplored; it is a mine that calls for extraction for the benefit of both parties.
Diaspora Africans need decolonisation of mind
A significant aspect of the 'enslavement process' was to mis-educate the Diasporans about Africans, and Continental Africans about those in the Diaspora. This stubborn barrier still exists within the Global African community and needs to be reversed by appropriate education.
South Africa's policy shift on Myanmar justified
Earlier this year, this column accused post-apartheid South Africa of betraying the aspirations of the entire Third World on the issue of human rights. What was involved? In 2006, SA became a non-permanent member of the powerful UN Security Council. Before the council was a proposition to condemn human rights violations by Myanmar's military junta. In February 2007, SA voted against that resolution on procedural grounds.
Africa should purge its past
The first critical step towards genuine reparations is fundamental rehabilitation of the Africans' 'attitude of mind'. Slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism have left deep scars in our psyche: a sense of inferiority complex, self-contempt and worshiping things Western. We are part of what Caribbean writer, Frantz Fanon, describes in his book Black Skin, White Masks.
Land issue in South Africa after apartheid
A panel of experts has recommended that freedom of foreigners to purchase land in SA be curtailed. It will be mandatory to obtain ministerial approval to buy land earmarked for land restitution. Foreigners will not be allowed to buy land in areas of national interest.
Remembering great Blacks in the Diaspora
August was a landmark month in Historic African Diaspora in more ways than one. It was the month that saw James Seale sentenced to three life terms for the murder of two Black youth 34 years earlier. The week after, the world of tennis honoured Althea Gibson for her contribution to the game, 50 years after that courageous Black woman won Wimbledon, the most prestigious event in that sport.
Global reparations vs human exploitation
A decade ago, Africa threw its weight behind the cause of reparations for Blacks universally. Encouraged by the Japanese-Americans' victory of 1989 in the US, African-Americans revived their own crusade with renewed vigour. From the 1990s they have pushed the reparations crusade right up to Capital Hill in Washington, DC. The current demand is for compensating African-Americans as the most immediate responsibility of the United States.
Campaign For Reparations - Can Africa Make Claims To The West?
Calls for compensating Africa by former colonisers has gained momentum over the years. Is this a subtle invitation to reorient our minds and revisit the question: "Between Africa and the West, who really owes whom?" South Africa was caught in an animated debate on the same issue of a debt. Should the Black victims of apartheid seek legal restitution from those corporations that benefited from their exploitation in the past?
Women set for political supremacy in 21st Century
Going by current indications, the 21st Century will witness women rise to powerful positions around the world. So far, Asia has done comparatively well, and signs are that women will continue to be effective power brokers in that continent.
State of affirmative action in South Africa
Do the wheels of history always turn towards greater justice? Apparently so considering that whenever Black and White people have interacted, some form of racism has emerged. Equally persistently, the societies in question have often evolved some programmes to remedy the inequities derived from the self-inflicted racism.
The African Diaspora: A definition revisited
Accepted contemporary definitions of the African Diaspora include all Africans living outside the continent. These definitions invariably embrace two categories of the African Diaspora. First, the Diaspora Enslavement comprises of the African descendents who were historically taken away from Africa by force.
South Africa and the Global Africa
Post apartheid South Africa deals with the issue of the African Diaspora differently from the rest of the continent. This is because of its unique history.
African Diaspora and the US-African policy
During his first presidential campaign, George W Bush brushed Africa aside as incidental to the US global interests. Three years later, the same Bush made an official five-nation visit to Africa. Critics wondered if it was tourism or serious business.
Africa must enter the nuclear debate
The Third World is now painfully aware of its dire need for nuclear energy -- Also, a sentiment has arisen that the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is discriminatory against the Third World.
Global Africa has to revisit Nuclear debate
Should Global Africa sit back and be marginalised on the on-going nuclear debate? In considering the matter, it is worth remembering that the same question has arisen in the past.
Campaign for Black Reparations Worldwide
Next month Zimbabwe will host a major conference to intensify the quest for reparations, a global effort for restitution for damages done to Global Africans by slavery, colonialism and racial degradation. What is the background to this phenomenon?
Nyerere was Africa's true man of the people
Afro-pessimists of the world once glorified Tanzania's Julius Kambarage Nyerere by musing that he should not have been born African. More sincere admirers saluted him simply as 'one of the planet's best and brightest'. When he died in 1999, practically the entire world, including the General Assembly of the UN, grieved a terrible loss. An American Afro-optimist simply lamented tearfully: I would have followed him anywhere!
Apartheid had a role in making of history
African-American Pan-Africanist, Molefe Ashante, often laments that Europe has robbed Africa of its history. The charge is an inverted vindication of the old adage that, as long as the lion remains the writer of history, he will always emerge the victor.

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