A ranking by any other name

This story of Harvard political scientist, Robert Rotberg, and Sudanese billionaire, Mo Ibrahim, falling out, is quite something.

Image: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid via Flickr CC.

A rich Sudanese businessman living in London hires an American professor to come up with an index to rank African governments for things like corruption, vaccines coverage, crime rates and armed conflict. They do it for two years. This would cement both their reputations. People love rankings and information that is organized; information that comes ordered. The rich guy is assured of lots of good publicity. He looks like he cares about more than just his astronomical profits. The academic will make a big reputation. Then the rich guy decides he does not need the American anymore. He’d rather hire African researchers (“Why should an American gentleman sitting in Boston have editorial control? That is unacceptable.”) The rich guy is a pan-Africanist now. The American academic is upset, splits off and brings out his own rankings. The two sets of rankings are launched on the same day, and the two rankings – give or take a few things – are almost identical. This is a true story. Oh yes the rankings? If you still want to see them. Here and here they are.  That’s the first item in this round-up post.

For a while now I have been hoping to post a link to a blog post by Chicago-based Nnedi Okorafor, a writer of science fiction, about the reception to science fiction among Africans. Like the people she interviews for her post, Okorafor is not very optimistic about the genre’s future on the continent The interviewees includes Nollywood director Tchidi Chikere, author Tobias Buckell, and Naunihal Singh, a political scientist and fan of speculative fiction. In the piece Okorafor also notes that one major reason African science fiction won’t grow has to do with what the publishing industry considers “literature.” You can read the post and the comments here.

2009 is the twentieth anniversary of Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing.” I’d definitely include “Do The The Right Thing” in my top 10 films of all time. Lee’s been doing interviews celebrating the film, including one with The Guardian.  You know Lee is going to say something good. For example, about the election of President of Barack Obama, he tells the interviewer: “… Anyone who thinks we move in a post-racial society is someone who’s been smoking crack.”

The Chicago-based literary theorist Walter Ben Michaels has been going on about why we privilege race over class for a while now. His right to a point. You can read his latest article in the London Review of Books, here.

William Kamkwamba was 14 when he built a windmill from scratch that supplies his family’s home in rural Malawi with a reliable electricity supply. Then he started thinking about electricity for his neighbors. Then he got invited to study further in South Africa. Then he traveled to the United States. This kid deserves all the shine he can get. For much needed context on William’s endeavors see AfricaFocus. There’s also more background here, here, here and here as well as Kamkwamba’s blog. When he was a shy 19 year old, he spoke at one of the TED seminars (if you can stand the manner of the interviewer).

Watch young Sowetans have their photograph taken and talk about identity and nation.

Bongeziwe Mabandla performing live on a TV morning show in South Africa. This guy is good.

The Economist magazine on crime in South Africa: “… South Africa still has one of the world’s highest murder rates, at 37 per 100,000 inhabitants: six times America’s rate and nearly 20 times Britain’s. Though some types of crime have gone down, the rate of violent house robbery has doubled in the past five years. Armed robbery at business premises has risen fourfold in the same period…” Here.

Howard French was for many years West Africa correspondent for The New York Times. He wrote an excellent book “A Continent for the Taking” based on his time there and is also a very good photographer. You can see his photography here. (He is now associate professor of journalism at Columbia University in New York City.)

Further Reading