Guest Post by Zachary Rosen
Perched high above South Africa, Lesotho usually does not receive much international media attention. The little coverage it does garner often assumes readers are completely ignorant and takes great pains to emphasize dismal statistics about rates of HIV/AIDS and poverty. Of course since the last time you heard a story about Lesotho, you’ve surely forgotten how dire it is and must be reminded. In embodying banal, perfunctory reporting, some articles about Lesotho have tried to draw readers in by focusing on the recent visit to the country by the illustrious Archbishop Desmond Tutu, while others have stressed the risk of political violence during and after today’s elections. The Economist deserves special recognition for going to print with the wrong name for the political party of the incumbent Prime Minister. Kind of makes you question their expertise in intelligence. Overall, few articles have attempted to move beyond superficialities and actually delve into the complexities of the local political atmosphere and the implications of the election outcome.
Lesotho votes today
This is not about art
Between the relentless media coverage, the twitter deluge, the pronouncement by a South African judge (“This is a matter of great national importance”), and declarations by the South African President’s daughters about “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” you might be forgiven for thinking that–finally–some urgency about South Africa’s big issues was making national news. Were we talking about how to deal with the persistent racial and class inequality, joblessness, and a lack of government accountability? Not so much.
Akin Omotoso’s Country
A recurring theme in director Akin Omotoso’s films is the fraught postapartheid relationship between Nigerian migrants and their South African hosts. Part of the reason is autobiographical: Akin is the son of Kole, the literary professor, who moved his young family, including his then teenage son, to South Africa in the early 1990s from Nigeria. The result is that Omotoso is as much Nigerian as he is South African.
Pinkwashing South Africa
Guest Post by T.J. Tallie and Maria Hengeveld
This week BBC News reported on the rise in Cape Town’s status as a premiere international gay tourist destination. The article itself went on to report at length from gay South African hoteliers and organizers, many of whom lavished praise on the progressivism enshrined in the country’s constitution, and the comparative sense of freedom that South Africa in general (and Cape Town in particular) provided for LGBT-identified people. While it is undeniable that South Africa can boast one of the most inclusive constitutions in the world, particularly in regard to protecting the rights of those with different sexual orientations, the BBC article and much of the rhetoric surrounding ‘Cape Town as gay paradise’ obscures far more complex realities.
Drogbacite
Guest Post by Laurent Dubois
There are some matches that end up seeming primarily the vehicle for one person to somehow attain mythical status. The Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern was written, it seems now, purely to allow Didier Drogba a form of poetic catharsis worthy of fiction or film. The fact that Chelsea won was itself a kind of oddity, for throughout the game it seemed the most unlikely of outcomes. But as he had against Barcelona, Drogba became the master of the unruly and the absurd: none of what the other team did, not of the great passing and possession and continual shots on goal, mattered in the end. Just Drogba did, his head and then his foot.
Joyce Banda and Gay Rights
Post by Travis Ferland
Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda, has said that she will push for the repeal of her country’s anti-homosexuality laws. Of course this depends on her ability to secure popular support in parliament. Even if these laws are repealed, will public animosity towards gays and lesbians change? Will protective laws be created in their place? Will life be any different for Malawi’s sexual minorities?
Friday Music Break(s)
British based Nigerian rapper Modenine starts off our weekly Friday Music Break. Here’s four more.
Drogbacite
This weekend Chelsea play Bayern Munchen in the European Champions League final. One player whose contribution is likely to be decisive is the Ivorian Didier Drogba. Cup finals always end in triumph or disaster, and Drogba has made a habit of exaggerating those extremes, either scoring the winner or else missing a penalty or getting himself disastrously sent off. Above is a clip of Drogba doing the rounds of English chat shows. [Read more...]
The Wisdom of Nawal el Saadawi
Earlier today on Twitter I summarized 80 year-old Egyptian feminist activist and writer Nawal el Saadawi’s comments in an interview published in the weekend edition of The Financial Times. The parts I did not tweet is about her flirting with the writer and her opening quote: “I was very good-looking when I was younger. This created a lot of problems for me. When you are intelligent and beautiful you face a lot of problems. If you are beautiful and stupid then it’s easy.” Here, below, it is in storify form. (Oh, I messed up the numbers; there are just six of them). [Read more...]
The Afrikaans struggle
Some random history: The Guardian yesterday published a short obituary of Bruce King, the British anti-apartheid campaigner–and also “an eminent geomorphologist (a scholar of landscapes) and a pioneer in the science of remote sensing.” Hamba Kahle Bruce King. The obituary, among others, makes reference to his marriage to his South African wife, Jamela Adams. It describes their wedding in “a Muslim ceremony in Cape Town” in 1964 in defiance of the Mixed Marriages Act. The couple left for England (presumably to have another ceremony there), and was then predictably refused entry back into South Africa. They then moved to Tanzania. But there’s this tidbit about their time in Tanzania: “Jamela broadcast in Afrikaans for the ANC radio station transmitting to South Africa.” I want to know more about that story.
