Since African women need to be saved by Nicholas Kristof, I’m not surprised to find that only two of them made Forbes’s America-centric (surprise, surprise) list of “The 100 Most Official Women: The top United Nations human rights official, Navanethem Pillay (she’s South African) and the President of Liberia, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson (BTW, I think Sirleaf-Johnson is probably the most media-savvy African President) .
Is Pillay the most powerful African woman?
Surprise, surprise, 100 days into his tenure as South Africa’s newest President, Jacob Zuma is getting high marks from the Financial Times. Like everyone else, before April’s elections the FT raised “the specter of some new heart of darkness descending on South Africa.” Now Zuma is their man. Descriptions of “… a solid and optimistic beginning by his government” and of Zuma being “pragmatic pragmatically.” Zuma’s choice of finance minister (Pravin Gordhan) and the elevation of Trevor Manuel to the powerful post of planning minister “… have been welcomed in the private sector.” And of course he has not let the demands of “left wingers” (meaning the poor majority) to do something about glaring poverty and inequality, influence him. (He also gets praise for being more conciliatory towards whites and opposition parties unlike his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki.) The FT also has anecdotes:
“King Mswati of Swaziland, ruler of some of the poorest people in the world, has sent his favourite wives on a [$6.3]-million shopping jaunt through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Reports from the kingdom said that the king had dispatched at least five of his 13 wives and dozens of retainers to France, Italy, Dubai and Taiwan on a secret tour last week, using [$6,3]-million from the state budget. In Swaziland it is a criminal offence to criticise the private life of the king, Africa’s last absolute monarch. Swaziland is home to about 1.2 million people, more than two thirds of whom live in abject poverty on less than R10 a day. More than a quarter of the adult population has HIV — one of the highest ratios in the world. The king enjoys a personal fortune of about [$229 million], as the beneficiary of two funds created by his father, King Sobhuza II, in trust for the nation. He also receives money from the national budget for his family’s upkeep. Last year this totalled [$19]-million — more than was set aside for education.”
Via Dan Moshenberg
[Source]
I was anticipating that sooner or later someone would organize a conference on this theme. The Department of African and African American Studies at George Mason University in Virginia is organizing such a conference in early October. Here’s an excerpt from the call for papers:
Earlier this week I posted a comment by my friend, Christi van der Westhuizen, going after novelist-singer Toast Coetzer for this statement in an interview:
“One probably writes about the things that you think about a lot. Sometimes the line between having sex with someone and raping someone is very thin, even within a relationship. If the girlfriend does not want to, but you do and you have sex with her — is that rape?”
The remark has pissed off lots of people (not just on this blog). Coetzer has now responded in a comment to this blog about the context and his own attempts to set the record straight:
The BBC has a story on a new documentary (trailer above) about Nigerian soldiers whose exploits as part of the British Army in Burma during World War II has been written out of history. Though Nigerians made up more than half of the total force of 90,000 West African soldiers deployed to South East Asia after 1943 as part of the British Army’s 81st and 82nd (West Africa) Divisions, we hardly hear about them:
The contribution of West Africans was played down in official versions of the Allied war in Asia, and until now, few have had an opportunity to tell their tale. In fact, only two in 10 of the soldiers who fought in Burma were white. The role of Indians and Gurkhas is known. But when Allied commander General William Slim thanked his 14th army at the end of the campaign, he did not even mention the Africans.”
[HT: Naijablog]
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The good people at the Red Bull Academy have finally put up the 30-odd minute video conservation between Ready D and Shaheen (Ariefdien), founders of rap crew Prophets of da City in South Africa, that was taped in Cape Town in 2003. These guys are probably one of the continent’s oldest hip hop crews (They also recorded the first Afrikaans hip hop track, “Dala Flet.”)
You can also print out the transcript and read it.
[Source]
No, the characters of the FOX TV animated show have not left their home in Springfield. It’s just a TV ad campaign promoting the show on Angolan TV. Apparently Homer is drinking the local brew, Cuca, “the Budweiser of Angola,” Bart is wearing the popular Angolan flag t-shirt, while the girls braided their hair. [Here's a link to the original image]
[Via Animal New York; HT Marissa]
