So, it looks like I was wrong about Mugabe. IOL reports that he appeared at Victoria Falls on Wednesday, thus ending speculation that he is seriously ill. Nevertheless, the article goes on to say that:

"...it has been established that Mugabe has been dogged by ill health over the past few months, after suffering a minor stroke. Sources in his party and his intelligence service say he has regularly shown signs of stress and epileptic fits, which often caused him to collapse. The latest incident, they say, was on Saturday, after the president had attended a relative's wedding in southern Zimbabwe."

Perhaps it is still too soon to dismiss all the speculation about Mugabe's health problems. Thanks to John Elliott for pointing this article out to me.

The Adam Smith Institute Weblog is speculating on the composition of a Howard shadow cabinet.

John Redwood as Chancellor could be an inspired choice. A little know fact about Redwood is that he's a member of All Souls College Oxford. For the uninitiated, All Souls is Oxford's most prestigious College, accepting only one or two members each year. It is said to contain the smartest minds in Britain, for what it's worth.

The Telegraph has an interesting article on Michael Howard.

Apparently, he's the son of Jewish Romanian immigrants who settled in Wales. This would make him the first Jewish leader of the Tories since Benjamin Disraeli, although, as Andrew Sullivan points out Disraeli converted to Anglicanism. A Jewish Welsh immigrant - who says that Britain is not a socially mobile society?

Duncan-Smith is out. No surprises here, really, although he did better than I was expecting to get 75 votes.

The surprise is that David Davis has chosen not put himself forward as a leadership candidate:

"One possible rival, David Davis, has already said he is backing Mr Howard in the leadership contest, saying he had decided to turn down requests to run himself....Mr Davis said his decision to "step aside" for Mr Howard was designed to prevent more infighting. 'I recently have had a lot of people come to me and suggest I run for the leadership ... enough to make me think I can win. However, a long and protracted leadership contest would worsen these deep divisions and faction fighting and make the sort of problems we have had in recent years even worse in the run up to the next general election."

Given his reputation as a political bruiser and his stated belief that the Tories have gone too far in their efforts to modernise, I find this statement rather odd. I wouldn't be surprised if, inspite of protestations to the contrary, some sort of deal has been done and Davis emerges as a senior figure in Howard's shadow cabinet. Perhaps too, he's concerned that he and Howard might compete for the same vote thus allowing a moderniser, Clarke or Portillo to sneak in. What does seem clear is that with most senior Tories lining up behind Howard this should be a relatively short and painless transition. Unless, of course, it goes to the Conservative party membership in which case anything could happen..

Since my last post, Unlearned Hand has toned down his initially rather visceral attack on my view that human rights are intrinsic, and shouldn't be granted on the basis of whether we happen to like people or not. In fact, to an extent we now converge: we both agree that the situation in Guantanomo Bay can be criticised in terms of the language of rights. Having conceded that point, however, Unlearned Hand makes the following comment:

"Let's take a different line for argument's sake. Let's say you and I think there is an intrinsic right to subsistence. Does that mean you or I can walk into a courtroom and demand the government feed us? It does not, because a claim that 'we all have an intrinsic right not to starve to death' is not currently legally cognizable. Certainly we could work to change that. But we at least need to recognize the current legal regime for what it is ... So where does that leave us? The way I see it, my South African colleague is saying that the Gitmo prisoners have an "intrinsic moral right" to this or that procedural protection, and my response is maybe, maybe not, but either way they don't have a legal right to it."

The point that Unlearned Hand is, I think, trying to make is that I'm entitled to say that the Guantanomo Bay detainees have (moral) rights, that should be crystallised into legal rights, but ultimately this is rather speculative and contentious, and similar to claiming that everyone should enjoy a right to food under US law.

Now the right to food does enjoy some protection under international law (in the form of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and under the South African Constitution. But I accept Unlearned Hand's argument that in almost all jurisdictions requesting food from a court, as a matter of right, would not be a legally cognisable claim.

The problem with Unlearned Hand's analogy, however, is that the rights in issue in Guantanomo Bay -- rights such as the right to be presumed innocent, not to be arbitrarily detained, and to be tried within a reasonable time -- enjoy far wider protection in domestic legal systems than the right to food, and are therefore far more well-established and well-defined. In fact, I struggle off-hand to think of a single liberal democracy that does not extend these rights to its citizens. And that, of course, reflects a shared moral conviction that procedural rights such as these are among the most fundamental tenets of decent government, and are owed to individuals as matters of intrinsic right.

Prior to 9/11 most human rights lawyers would have been astounded if they'd been told that one of the world's leading democracies would shortly abandon procedural guarantees that have been centuries in the making. That the US now has -- and that articulate and intelligent people are willing to let it do so -- is what saddens me.

As our manifesto declares, this blog is principally concerned with South African and British issues, with occasional deviations elsewhere. It is therefore with some reluctance that I respond to one Unlearned Hand of En Banc, who takes exception to my discussion of his remarks on the detainees held at Guantanomo Bay.

In essence, Unlearned Hand disagrees with my view that rights are intrinsic, and are owed to individuals regardless of whether we think they deserve them or not. For Unlearned Hand, rights only have meaning if they can be derived from binding documents, wherein they are clearly defined. Talk of 'intrinsic' rights is mere mumbo-jumbo, and is likely to lead only to abuse of power.

The difficulties with Unlearned Hand's position are well-illustrated by the experience of my own country -- South Africa -- under apartheid. Apartheid was perfectly legal under South African law, and South Africa had also not ratified any international conventions dealing with human rights. In this sense, black South Africans, like the detainees in Guantanomo Bay, had no legally binding rights.

Does this mean, however, that apartheid didn't constitute a violation of human rights, or that it shouldn't have been criticised on this basis? Does it also mean that apartheid could have been defended on the grounds that black South Africans had no legally binding rights? These would be odd positions to hold, and should put things in perspective. I agree with Learned Hand that the Guantanomo Bay detainees don't have enforceable rights, but that rather misses the point; the point is that they should.

Learned Hand also thinks that the rights that I invoke are incapable of definition. But I think that this overstates the case. As Learned Hand correctly concedes, the detainees have a right, under the Geneva Conventions, to a preliminary hearing within a reasonable time to determine their status. Those who are found to be POWs would then be entitled to the full range of rights guaranteed under the remainder of the Conventions. As for those detainees who are not POWs, the due process rights to which they should be entitled are well-defined under documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

On reflection, it might seem that Unlearned Hand and I are talking at cross-purposes. After all, in his original post he concluded that access to legal process should be granted to the Guantanomo Bay detainees because 'it speaks to our morals.' But, fundamentally, I was making a point about the correct attitude to hold if we want to sign on the human rights agenda -- as a powerful moral ideal -- in good faith. My point was this: if we want to take human rights seriously, then whether or not we think people 'deserve' rights should be irrelevant. This leaves open the possibility that certain people don't deserve rights, which would make nonsense of the very concept of human rights.

Of course, it might be that Unlearned Hand doesn't want to sign on to the idea of human rights. But then he would either have to be indifferent to political systems such as apartheid, or find some way to criticise them that doesn't turn on the notion that humans, everywhere, are owed certain standards of treatment -- regardless of what we think of them personally.

Juli Killian, New National Party (NNP) provincial MP in Gauteng, argues today that Tony Leon and the DA's current stategy to 'build the core of an alternative government' are fatuous in the extreme:

'Only a political fool could believe that a white-led party could become the alternative government in SA,'

This is what fellow South African, and Oxford Economist, Robyn Evans had to say in response:

It is difficult to disagree with this point of view and in my opinion, to take Leon and his political
antics seriously any more. The DP lost all credibility when they joined forces with the Nats to form the DA
in 2002. Furthermore, Tony Leon's aggressive stance towards the Mbeki-led ANC, served only to antagonise
the government and undermine any future constructive initiatives from his own party. Opposition for the sake of
opposition does little to advance political discourse, or indeed social and economic development.

However, it is important in a democratic society that a strong, widely-supported opposition exists to challenge
a majority political powerhouse that is the ANC. Killian makes the case for building a 'moderate, nonracial centre'
to maintain a 'political majority against a future radical, socialist left-wing opposition'. Furthemore, she suggests
the NNP will 'continue to engage the ANC' to ensure that this happens. If the DP-Freedom Alliance alliance was
hard to stomach, the latterly cosiness of the ANC and their former oppressors reminds one that in the end it's all
about politics and votes, votes and politics. That Killian believes so fervently that the NNP will have any real
influence on ANC policy and thinking, is nothing short of amusing. The NNP has broadened the government's
power base and nothing else. All the rest is pie in a very deluded sky.

What then are the alternatives? The IFP? The PAC? The UDM? De Lille's ID? The last two are certainly ideologically
more appealing than the DA and NNP to anyone with left-of-centre inclinations, but not likely to rouse enough
interest amongst the wider electorate.

Perhaps what is needed is a newly defined and different version of the ANC. A black-led party that is designed to address the social and economic concerns of our generation. Not one based on years of history and suffering, but one motivated specifically by the challenges of today - globalisation, education, employment, economic growth, AIDS, human rights, environmental awareness etc. A party that will capture the imaginations of future generations of South Africans - both those who are constrained by the lack of opportunity and those who have begun to reap the fruits of our ten-year old dispensation. Maybe I am the one with deluded ideals, but it seems to me that what may have a chance of beating the ANC, is in fact the ANC 'reloaded'.

The Telegraph on Iain Duncan-Smith.. Talk about damning with faint praise.

Oh how I weep for the American sense of justice post-September 11. The other day I picked up the following comment on a legal blog entitled En Banc:

"Let me make one thing clear: I have little sympathy for the detainees. If they were to sit in Gitmo for 50 years I wouldn't feel bad for them. I don't think they "deserve" the rights provided by our Constitution, and some of them probably really do not fall under the Geneva Convention rubric.

It's the lack of process which bothers me. Process implicates the captor as much, if not more than, the captive. It speaks to our morals, our capacity for seeing a fair trial given to those we hate the most. I don't think they have a right to it, but I think we should give it to them anyway. We are better than them, and we are better than the alternative which they represent."

Well, at least the author thinks that the detainees should have access to legal process, which is more than the Bush administration is willing to grant them. But, more seriously, firstly, rights are not extended to people on the basis of whether they 'deserve' them or not. Rights are intrinsic; humans have rights by virtue of being human, not by virtue of perceived moral character. One does not give someone a right out of a sense of magnanimity; rights are owed. Secondly, what on earth happened to the presumption of innocence, one of the most fundamental principles of criminal justice? How can the author claim to have 'little sympathy' for the detainees when their guilt or innocence has not been established through the judicial process?

In all fairness, I should point out that many of the entries on En Banc are highly critical of the situation in Guantanomo Bay. What disturbs me, however, is that views such as the one quoted above have gained serious currency in the US in the wake of 9/11 (as has the argument that torture is an acceptable means of interrogation). And this is sad for a country that -- rightly -- has great pride in its democratic traditions, and its commitment to civil liberties.

Great entry Andrew. But if you think that the Conservative Party in Britain is in trouble, its nothing compared to the travails of its counterpart in Canada. Apparently, the mainstream conservative party in that country recently attempted to rejuvenate its flagging fortunes by forming an alliance with like-minded parties, under the name 'Canadian Reform Alliance Party.' This, of course, forms the tragic acronym CRAP...

This Blog is supposed to be concerned with both British and South African issues although, given the welter of interesting stories coming out of South Africa at the moment, the dearth of British related blogging is perhaps not surprising. Nevertheless, its never too late to start and on that score I draw your attention to the BBCs top story of the hour: The challenge to Iain Duncan-Smiths leadership of the Tories..

IDS will probably go down in history as the worst leader of the Conservative party of the last 100 years. Not only did he fail to win an election, he failed even to survive for long enough to face an election (this is assuming he loses the leadership challenge, which I think he will). He possessed all of William Hague's faults and contrived, somehow, to add a few that Hague did not possess: lack of political nous, lack of savvy in Parliament and lack of any discernible intelligence. Nevertheless, Hague must carry some of the can for IDS's presence at the helm of the Tories. If Hague hadn't fiddled with the leadership election process, IDS would not have ended up being leader. Instead, its possible that the Tories would have had Michael Portillo who, to my mind, is still the only man with a real chance of leading the Tories to victory in 7 years time (the Tories will lose the next election regardless of who their leader is). Hague's changes were designed, ironically enough, to make leadership challenges more difficult, but the nett result was to put the question of the leadership to rank and file party members. It bears pointing out that the average Tory party member is in her 60s and so conservative on most issues as to be out of touch with the feelings of the rest of the country. Thus, as my grandmother put it,'...we all voted for IDS because the alternative was that ghastly lager drinking euro-phile Kenneth Clarke.' Portillo was at that stage already out of the running having put himself beyond the pale with the party membership by admitting to a series of homosexual relationships whilst up at Cambridge.

Portillo, to my mind, is still a worthy candidate. He impressed me, when I heard him speak last year, by suggesting that if the Tories were ever to win again they would have to realise that the commitment to liberty and freedom went beyond just encouraging laissez-faire capitalism and included getting out of the bedroom, reducing the power of the state and withdrawing from the whole communitarian enterprise. Surprisingly, this is not something the Tories have been very good at. Even under Thatcher, the Conservatives remained wedded to the idea of a strong, paternalistic state. The Conservatives have always seen the state as the guardian of British values and morals and the protector of Britain's history and heritage. That may have worked in the 1950s, it may even have been tolerated, through gritted teeth in the 80s but it certainly wont hold water in the 21st century. Very few of the Tory leadership seems to realise this, though which is why I say I was impressed with Michael Portillo when I heard him.

Nonetheless, its unlikely that Portillo will make a run for the leadership. Without a shadow cabinet position from which to make his bid it's unlikely that he'd even be able to garner much of the parliamentary party's support. So who else? The name that is being bandied about is Michael Howard, the man of whom Ann Widdecombe, rather unfairly, said she discerned, '...something of the night.' Howard is nevertheless an impressive figure, he has lots of experience (he was Home-Secretary under John Major), he has a sharp and analytical mind (witness the off-the-cuff forensic analysis that he performed on Gordon Brown's budget this year) and, perhaps most importantly, he seems to have a lot of support within the party. The problem with Howard is that he represents the Tory party of yesterday. No doubt he would say he has moved with the times but there is something about him, a certain arrogance perhaps, possibly some of that old style paternalism, which doesn't bode well for the future. And make no mistake the Tories have a monumental task ahead of them if they are to convince the electorate that they've moved on.

Is Howard a capable man, who would make a decent PM? Yes, I think he is. Is he the man to lead a comprehensive rank and file overhaul of the Tories and their image? No, I don't think so. So if Howard is elected leader, the Tories will still go down heavily at the next election and they will fail to make any real headway in the years that follow. Perhaps we can look forward to another leadership challenge in around 4/5 years time as the Tories realise that they are about to lose a record 4th election. If that happens they will have all but consigned themselves to the dustbin of history. The next couple of days will be interesting, they may well mark the point at which the Conservatives finally get there act together. On the other hand, future historians may see this as the point at which their decline became irreversible...

Mugabe: Looks like the rumour had no basis. Mugabe is apparently alive and well and chaired a Cabinet meeting this morning according to unnamed sources.

Or is he? If Mugabe has suddenly fallen ill there would be a number of compelling reasons why his cronies might want to maintain the illusion that he is still performing his duties whilst they decide what to do. Just some idle speculation...

Mugabe is in hospital. Dare I say it, dare we hope?

Way South has some stuff on South Africa's proposed pebble bed nuclear reactor.

I was, initially, rather sceptical of this. South Africa has a history of large and expensive projects which struggle to turn a profit, think of Mossgas, SASOL, the Rooivalk etc, and this just seemed to be more of the same. But, as time's gone by, I've been won over by some of the arguments. Pebble beds are exceptionally safe and, if the experts are to be believed, relatively cheap. Furthermore, compared to coal fired reactors they present far less of an environmental problem. Certainly, there is the problem of waste disposal but, in a country that is largely made up of unpopulated desert, that shouldn't be a problem. Finally, they may even earn us some much needed export dollars, if we can sell a few of them overseas.

Yesterday it was reported that Zimbabwean police had shut down the country's only independent paper, The Daily News. Today we're hearing that the papers directors have all been arrested. Have we heard a squeak from the South African govt? Not one. Viva 'quiet diplomacy'..

Interestingly, the BBC reported a couple of weeks ago that The Daily News was planning to set up a news website in South Africa in the event of the police shutting them down again. If this happens it could create real sparks. Granted, most Zimbabweans don't have access to the net, but it is still possible that Mugabe would take offence and demand that the SA govt do something about it. Would Thabo be prepared to trample on the rights of his own citizens if Bob demanded it? It seems unlikely, but, then, most of the govts response to Zimbabwe has been pretty surreal. I await further developments with interest.

The ANC has dismissed as speculation the story that Cyril Ramaphosa might be contemplating a political comeback. Its true that his name was included on the Western Cape candidates list, but he still has the right to withdraw, which he is -- apparently -- likely to do. Ramaphosa was, it seems, nominated, despite the fact that he didn't want to be.

It is, incidentally, interesting to note that Jacob Zuma garnered the second-most votes in the Western Cape, after Thabo Mbeki. A lot of people, including such esteemed publications as The Economist, have been saying that, following allegations of corruption, Zuma is a spent force. The fact that he has retained this level of support suggests that we shouldn't jump to this conclusion too quickly. Of course, a great deal hinges on the outcome of the Hefer Commission. As Farrel Lifson pointed out via our comments section, the Commission has split the ANC, with an array of ANC heavyweights coming out in support of Bulelani Ngcuka. If Zuma's accusations that Ngcuka was an apartheid-era spy turn out to be ill-founded -- as seems increasingly likely -- then he will almost certainly suffer real damage. If, on the other hand, he is vindicated, then he could receive a massive boost, and do damage to those who have sided with Ngcuka. We shouldn't, in other words, write off Zuma yet, at least not until the Hefer Commission is wrapped up. Sadly, for those intrigued by the ever-thickening plot, this is likely to take some time...

Thanks Steve...

For interests sake, I'm posting a response to one of Murray's articles by Farrel Lifson at Politics.Za:

"With regards to the lack of successors for Mbeki, I think people are underestimating Trevor Manuel. He is immensely popular among the ANC membership (as witnessed by his #1 election to the ANC NEC), he has a credible track record in his current position as Finance Minister and he is one of the few politicians in this whole Zuma/Ngcuka/Shaik/Maharaj mess who will come out totally clean. I don't think he has yet to make a single statement about the whole debacle. He in fact has probably the most to gain by Zuma losing his standing in the ANC and not taking over after Mbeki.

Of course the question remains will the "Xhosa Nostra" allow a boy from the Cape Flats to lead the country?

Ramaphosa is definitely a contender but I really think that Manuel has his eyes dead set on the prize. If Ramaphosa throws his hat in the ring he will find a tough contender in Manuel."

I agree that Manuel is an impressive character. Along with Tito Mboweni he strikes me as one of the ANCs most credible and intelligent members. Nevertheless, I'll eat my hat if South Africa ends up with a Manuel presidency. A former lecturer of mine at the University of Cape Town once made the point that ANC internal politics is driven by competition between the 'Robben Islanders', the 'Exiles' and the people who made their names in the 80s in either the trade unions or the UDF, call them the 'civics'. That struggle was effectively won by the 'exiles' when Mbeki out manouvered Ramaphosa in the mid 90s. It resurfaces from time to time though, most recently when Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Matthews Phosa were accused of plotting against the president in 2001. If this theory is correct, it puts Manuel at an immediate disadvantage since he cut his political teeth as a trade unionist in the early 80s and, to the best of my knowledge, has never been close to the exiles. I know that Manuel was elected no1 to the ANC MEC recently but I struggle to believe that the movers and shakers within the ANC will allow him to take the top job. This is before we even look at other theories of ANC internal politics. Its long been said, particularly by Zulus that the movement is dominated by Xhosa's and that a Zulu could never be president. As Farrel points out, Manuel is, 'a boy from the Cape Flats' so whether he would even be considered for the top job is anybodies guess. It's a pity, because I think he'd do a damn good job. He is already the most successful post War Minister of Finance that the country has produced (he'd run rings around anything that the Nats ever came up with) and has shown himself to be a thoughtful and articulate politician. It's hard to imagine Manuel making some of Mbeki's more egregious gaffe's.

Aidan Hartley has an interesting piece in this weeks Spectator about Zimbabwe. He suggests that Mugabe draws most of his pan-African support from a middle class that derives pleasure from watching white Zimbabweans, in particular, and Britain and the US, in general, receive their comeuppance.

I'm usually a bit sceptical of these sorts of articles: old white 'Africa hand' gets together with his black comrade from the struggle and then tells us where the roots of Africa's problems lie. Nevertheless, there may be some truth in what he says. Hartley quotes a statistic from a study by Lawrence Schlemmer which suggests that support for Mugabe amongst black South African's is partly a function of class. He goes on to remind us of how popular Idi Amins expulsion of Ugandan Asians was amongst the middle class of that country. Hartley doesn't mention it, but it bears pointing out that the irony of all this is that the middle classes of Zimbabwe are the ones voting for the MDC. Mugabe's support is almost entirely rural and peasant based and I suspect that even that is more a result of ZANU PFs use of food aid as a tool of political repression than of genuine love of the party.

The Zimbabwean political system is bankrupt (in both senses) from top to bottom. It's sole purpose now is to service the needs of a crony elite who exchange acquiescence to Mugabes mad flights of fancy for material riches. The great bulk of the people, the overwhelming majority of whom are black, are, of course, facing persecution, poverty and starvation. That this state of affairs prompts admiration from certain people is cause for major concern. It suggests that African elites are motivated more by a desire for revenge than by a commitment to the rule of law, respect for human rights and democracy. Again and again African leaders (including Thabo Mbeki) have tolerated the most outrageous excesses simply because the person committing them is a leader of a former liberation movement. If Hartley is to be believed then this attitude is not confined to African rulers but extends to the middle classes too. And that is worrying. The middle classes of Africa have the most to gain from stable, democratic govt, if they, of all people, do not see this, then the outlook for Africa is indeed bleak. The independent Zimbabwean media has been smashed (see my entry further down the page), the opposition is being hounded and the country faces mass starvation and for this Mugabe has won plaudits from an intelligentsia that itself must still have memories of fighting similar oppression.

Will somebody please do something about this!

This is very interesting. The Cape Argus has reported that Cyril Ramaphosa is seriously considering a return to politics, which would make him a strong contender for the presidency in 2009. Apparently, his name has appeared on a provisional list of candidates for the Western Cape, and analysts suspect that he may be using his nomination as a 'kite-flying' exercise to see what kind of support he would be able to muster.

For those unacquainted with South African politics, Mandela favoured Ramaphosa as his successor, but Mbeki managed to out-manouver him for the presidency. Thereafter, Ramaphosa decided to concentrate on business, although he remained on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC. Given some of Mbeki's stranger policies -- those relating to AIDS and Zimbabwe are most often cited -- many South Africans have been left wondering what might have been. Ramaphosa was the ANC's leading negotiator during the constitution drafting process, has enjoyed a successful career in business, and also seems able to inspire peoples' confidence. He remains extremely popular in the ANC (he garnered the second most votes in elections for the NEC at the ANC's Congress in Stellenbosch, after Trevor Manuel), although this support might well split once he re-enters the political arena.

If Ramaphosa does return to politics, and is seriously contemplating the presidency, this can only be a positive development. At the moment there is a real dearth of serious candidates to succeed Mbeki, which has led to what I hope is ill-informed speculation about Mbeki possibly amending the Constitution so as to allow for a third term. We should follow Mr Rhamaphosa's progress, and the response that it elicits from the ANC, with interest.

I've just discovered what looks like a relatively new blog devoted to British foreign policy. Airstrip One has a number of interesting posts including this one which links to an article about the development of British and French foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

I've said this before, but I'm amazed at how little discussion there is of British foreign policy by the elites that shape it. In particular, I'm thinking of its direction and strategic aims. Apart from a fuzzy commitment to the 'Special Relationship' and a certain scepticism of Europe there doesn't really seem to be any guiding philosophy. You can say what you like about Bush's foreign policy (I happen to be quite sympathetic to many aspects) but at least the neo-cons claim to be guided by a desire to restore democracy to formerly undemocratic parts of the world. British foreign policy and its practitioners, on the other hand, appear, at times, to be entirely re-active. This would be understandable if Britain were a small country on the periphery somewhere but it is not. It has one of the worlds largest economies and a very capable military and it could quite easily play a more pro-active and independent role on the world stage. In particular I'm thinking of Africa and the possible role that Britain could play in stabilising areas of West and Central Africa that are falling apart. Britain played a major role in bringing peace to Sierra Leone several years ago and there is no reason why it couldn't have done the same in Liberia and the Great Lakes region of the Congo. This is out of the question now, of course. The UKs invovement in Iraq means that it lacks both the troops and the popular will to get involved in more adventures in far off lands. Yet, this bears out my contention. There was no reason why the UK needed to get involved in Uncle Sam's war. The needs of the special relationship would have been satisfied by supporting the US's diplomatic efforts in the UN and by providing financial support in the wars aftermath. The US did not require Britain's assistance to win the war and, if anything, I suspect that US military planners resented having to work with their British counterparts. If Britain had remained aloof of Iraq it would have been in a position to go to the assistance of Liberia as that country imploded and it would probably have been in a position to provide the muscle to back up South Africa's diplomatic efforts in the Congo. There is a presumption in Britain that involvement in Africa will invite accusations of neo-colonialism, as indeed it might, from some quarters. But that is not sufficient reason to refrain from involvement. There is plenty of scope for Britain to work with Africa's more responsible powers and even where there is no local involvement there is usually a compelling moral case for intervention in countries which are being ravaged by civil war and tribalism. But Britain can only do this if it picks its wars carefully. Leave the heavy lifting to the US, it is quite capable, and focus on restoring peace to countries whose importance is perhaps only marginal. If the 'special relationship' was rational as opposed to emotional this is how things would work. And yet, there is so little debate about British foreign policy that the UK has found itself involved in a major campaign which, as recently as, two years ago anyone would scarecly have contemplated. Mr Blair, where is the direction? The 'special relationship' is not a sufficient basis from which to conduct such an important aspect of the nations life.

Richard at Way South has a link to a report by Reporters without Borders on world press freedom. South Africa ranks 21st, ahead of France, the UK and the USA. I haven't delved into the methodology used but these rankings set my spidey sense tingling. Since I'm not actually in South Africa, it's hard to get a feeling for how free the press really is at the moment, but it bears pointing out that when I left SA (about 2 years ago) the press had just come through an official investigation into racism in the media which at times had seemed like a barely concealed effort to muzzle those voices that were critical of the govt. I should also add, and I think this is still very much the case, that the SABC more or less toes the party line in its news coverage, to the extent that it is sometimes little more than a propaganda tool for the state. This being the case, I can't help but wander about the motivations of Reporters without Borders. If the USA is in the same company as Benin, Albania and Nicaragua one can't help but conclude that there is some sort of political axe being ground here.

Having said all that, I suppose this is good news. There is little doubt that South Africa does enjoy relatively high levels of press freedom and if the international community recognises this, we should be pleased.

Looks like I'm not the only one getting nostalgic over the withdrawal, today, of Concorde from regular airline service. I agree with both Matthew O'Keeffe and Johnathan Pearce that, whilst Concorde may have been a waste of taxpayers money, she is so beautiful and so audacious in conception that you can't help but feel a pang of regret with her passing.

Whilst out scouting the high frontier of the blogosphere I came across a number of African affairs blogs. I've linked to them on the sidebar and recommend that you check them out if you've an interest in Africa and South Africa...

The eagle eyed amongst you may also have noticed the word comment at the bottom of each entry. Yes, in response to overwhelming demand (2 people) we've added the ability to comment on each article. I'm hoping that this will increase interest in the site as people respond to some of the more provocative things we say.

Ahh, fame at last....

Last week I wrote an entry about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and expressed the view that, in light of the South African government's purported commitment to human rights, its silence on events in Zimbabwe is disturbing. One abuse I pointed to is the distribution of food aid on the basis of political allegiance. This is a clear human rights violation because it amounts to discrimination on the basis of political opinion. Lest anyone be in doubt about the veracity of this claim, you are invited to read the 51-page report 'Not Eligible: The Politicization of Food in Zimbabwe' published today by Human Rights Watch.

In essence, the report details how perceived adversaries to the ruling ZANU-PF party experience difficulty in gaining access to food. The category 'perceived adversaries' encompasses, not only members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), but also teachers, commercial farm workers and urban residents considered sympathetic to the MDC. In effect, without a ZANU-PF party card, a Zimbabwean cannot register for or receive government-subsidized grain. The net result is that 14 million people in Zimbabwe are 'food insecure' (that is, they are unable to obtain sufficient food to meet basic needs).

Given that aid agencies are active in Zimbabwe, and food aid has been poured into the country, how is this happening? One problem is that agencies tend to rely on local authorities to determine beneficiary status, which lends itself to political manipulation. Another factor -- and this is interesting -- is that the aid agencies are themselves politicised. According to the report, many aid agencies are resistant to providing aid to those resettled on former commercial farms under the government's land 'reform' program. This is partly due to political objections, on the part of aid agencies, to the 'reform' program itself. But its also because the government has dragged its heels about providing the needs assessment that would enable the aid agencies to provide assistance. After all, it would reflect very poorly on the government if the farms that have been resettled are unproductive, and the people who occupy them hungry. So there is a resistance to acknowledging the fact that they are.

All of this makes for horrifying reading and should put things in perspective for those interested in South African foreign policy. As noted previously, the factors that motivate Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' remain a matter for speculation. I suspect that they are both pragmatic and personal. But, whatever they are, they should easily be outweighed by the brute fact of 14 million needlessly starving people. Years from now, no one, least of all the South African government, can claim that they didn't know what was happening in Zimbabwe. The time has come -- no, the time has long since passed -- for our government to put moral distance between itself and this regime.

Concorde: So she's come to the end of her life and, as every paper in Britain has reported this week, an era has drawn to a close. For those feeling nostalgic, here and here are a few pictures of the most beautiful machine ever created by man...

At last I have stirred a modicum of controversy and interest! Following my entry that it had never seriously been put to me that I should decline the Rhodes on the basis that it is tainted money, fellow South African Rhodes Scholar Trudy Makhaya -- presently pursuing a high-flying and well-deserved career in Johannesburg -- sent me the following e-mail:

'I was very surprised to read that it had never been put to you to decline a
Rhodes scholarship on the basis of the tainted money. People bring it up with me
quite a lot. Not suggesting that I should have declined as such, but people
often ask how I feel about being associated with the scholarship, why I applied
and questions like those. When I got it, two (white) professors in my department
hinted at the same issues, and then one of them said - oh, at least for a change
they gave it to the right person (referring to race). Another time I was
discussing with them the suggestions that had been put to me about how to use
the scholarship (in terms of courses) and they reminded me that the money is the
blood and sweat of black miners - or something along those lines. These two went
out of their way to always remind me about the source of the money. But it got
worse just before I left - a certain publication got in touch with me to ask to
interview me and I said yes. Then someone called me to alert me about a
full-page article the paper had on that very day they called me - and it was
trashing Rhodes the man (I see nothing wrong in that), but there was a swipe at
the scholarship as well. It was clear to me the tainted money issue would come
up so I withdrew from the interview because I was still dealing with these
issues myself. And I thought they were being manipulative in the way they set
the whole thing up. Maybe they thought they could use me to show that the
scholarship had come a long way, to balance their previous article, but I just
wasn't happy with the way they went about it. Plus I am not sure if interviewing
a black, female scholar automatically paints a better picture of the
scholarship. I tell you the details to show how much that question comes up to
me and I wonder why it has never been put to you before. Could it be that given
my background, people think I am more conscious of the issues? It's very
strange. I think the tainted money issue is valid, and I have no problem with
people pointing out the flawed source of the money and the deeply flawed man
behind the money, but I think the scholarship has developed into something else,
something special and that should be celebrated.'

I don't really have anything to add, except that its interesting how race continues to condition our attitudes in South Africa. Should I be less concerned about the origins of Rhodes' money, just because I'm a white male of English origin? It also seems that Trudy and I agree on the fundamental point, namely, that, however Rhodes made his fortune, what the Scholarship has become -- what Scholars have contributed to South Africa, plus the formation of the Mandela-Rhodes Trust -- provides an answer to its critics.

Curiouser and curiouser. It seems that, after Maharaj made the allegations against Ngcuka, he phoned around looking for evidence to substantiate his claim that Ngcuka was an apartheid-era spy. This was the testimony of Letha Jolebe (chief ditrector in housing department) and Ntobeko Maqubela (attorney, and former comrade of Ngcuka) before the Hefer Commission today. The obvious question this raises is why Maharaj felt it necessary to find evidence after he had made his allegations. Surely, if one is to make such inflammatory and far-reaching statements, one ought to have all the evidence beforehand?

I was also interested to see, once again in the M&G, that Maharaj and Shaik weren't present at the Commission today, which deprived them of an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses who made allegations against them, namely, Jolebe and Maqubela. Maharaj and Shaik will only be able to do so if they make an application at a later stage, which may or may not be successful. Apparently, they were busy preparing their statements and are upset by the fact that the state isn't covering their legal costs.

Now, this is either an indication of great confidence (the case yet to be presented is so strong that they don't need to respond to the allegations made against them) or simple recklessness towards the proceedings. Until all the evidence is in, and the Commission is wrapped up, it will remain rather difficult to pass judgment on this pair.

Your daily Hefer update: SABC news is reporting that former anti-Apartheid activists Letha Jolobe and Glenn Goosen are to testify today. Jolobe was jailed, along with Bulelani Ngucka, for refusing to testify against three fellow activists during a treason trial in the early 80s. Goosen was a member of a group of activists in the Eastern Cape about whom Vanessa Brereton, recently revealed to be Apartheid spy RS452, reported to the authorities.

What really caught my eye, though, was this paragraph:

'George Bizos is also scheduled to make a submission to the commission tomorrow on behalf of the country's intelligence agencies...The commission has requested a wide range of apartheid era intelligence files from the agencies. However, in discussions they reportedly indicated that they could not provide these, as it would compromise their intelligence gathering.'

Let me see if I have this straight... It would 'compromise' the activities of the present intelligence services if they revealed information obtained during the Apartheid era. That can't be right. Surely they should be only too willing to reveal information obtained by the Apartheid intelligence services. It's not as if they still have Apartheid spies on the payroll, right? Nor is it likely that the agencies set up to monitor internal politics and dissent are still active. So, what is the problem? This may be the information that clinches the case...

Meanwhile, Mac Maharaj is adamant that Bulelani Ngcuka was an Apartheid spy. This comes shortly after representives for Maharaj and Mo Shaik advised the Hefer commission that it was not their contention that Ngucka was agent RS452. Murray gave short shrift to Maharaj and Shaik's changing story yesterday. All that I want to add is that, if Ngcuka is cleared, these two should face the high jump for wasting the states time and resources.

This is from the M&G story 'Maharaj, Shaik drop RS452 spy claim':

'Commission evidence leader Kessie Naidu told former judge Joos Hefer that Mac Maharaj and Mo Shaik denied this week that they believed Ngcuka had been RS452 ... "That is not their contention," their lawyer, Yunis Shaik, told commission secretary John Bacon.'

But that seems to have been their contention all along. I'm not in South Africa, and so don't have the benefit of watching TV news, but I found this on the independent newspapers web-site, in the article 'An open letter to Vanessa Brereton':

'Then came an e.tv slot where Mo Shaik presented his documents proving that RS452 was Ngcuka. The white former PE activists couldn't believe it when all they could see on the documents was reference to them and their meetings ... Ngcuka had never been part of their groups at the time.'

So it seems that the claim that Ngcuka was RS452 was the main argument all along. Are Maharaj et al now seriously going to present further evidence that they haven't bothered to tell anyone about yet? And, if they do have such evidence, how convincing is it likely to be, given the flimsiness of their initial case?

It's astonishing, actually, that so much trouble has been caused by what increasingly appear to be ill-founded allegations. The next question, I suppose, is, if Ngcuka is exonerated, whether he decides to sue for defamation.

Some good news - The BBC reports today that a new analysis has revealed that fewer people in SA are becoming infected with HIV than in previous years:

'...the annual rate of new infections has declined substantially, from 4.1% of the population aged 15-49 in 1997 to 1.7% in 2002. . . But BBC science correspondent Richard Black says the epidemic is certainly far from over. In the immediate future, the proportion of the adult population infected with HIV will stay roughly constant, the researchers say; the average life expectancy will continue to fall for around 10 years. The projections made by this research team are considerably lower than previous estimates, and the scientists acknowledge there are uncertainties in their figures. But they emphasise their analysis does not mean that the scale of the AIDS problem has been exaggerated.'

About 8 months ago I wrote a short article responding to a fellow South African who'd claimed that Robert Mugabe's theft of the Zimbabwean general election, whilst distasteful, was, ultimately, the best possible outcome. His argument was that given that Mugabe and his cronies had too much to lose from a transition, they would not allow a genuine democracy to emerge. The fear appeared to be that Mugabe might unleash a wave of repression leading to wholesale collapse as he and his henchmen attempted to cling onto power. At least if Mugabe remained in power some sort of stability would obtain. I was reminded of this article today whilst reading a report from, normally pro-Mugabe, SABC news about the emergence of a 'mafia economy' in Zimbabwe. This served to underline the fact that Zimbabwe has now ceased to operate as a normal country and is beginning the descent into anarchy. Further evidence of this was provided by a recent BBC report on the running dry of the state oil company and the disastrous effects this has had on the provision of basic services. Indeed things in Zimbabwe are so bad that they sometimes take a comical turn as occured when, as was widely reported several weeks ago, the Zimbabwean Central Bank ran out of money to print new bank notes. So, Zimbabwe has collapsed in spite of Mugabe's 'victory' and, in doing so, has made a lot of people look rather silly. Zimbabwe is still not democratic and now it doesn't even possess the dubious (if it is at the expense of democracy) virtue of being stable.

For interest's sake I'm posting my original article, unedited, in the hope that it might elicit some response:

In the last newsletter, Gareth Morgan argued that the possibility of Morgan Tsvangirai winning the recent Zimbabwean general election was, '... never an achievable goal', going onto suggest that, 'a transition of power in Zimbabwe through democratic elections was not viable at [that] time' and that, 'Mugabe's use of spoils politics had created too many people with too much to lose from an electoral defeat.' It is a measure of our low expectations that, I expect, many of us found ourselves quietly agreeing with his argument. The outlook for democracy was certainly bleak, indeed it still is, and perhaps, after all, we should take heed of Henry Kissinger's nostrum that stability is more important than justice.

Yet as the months have moved on and Mugabe has tightened his grip, hounded the opposition, threatened the press, enacted one of the largest and swiftest economic collapses on record and moved his country to the brink of mass starvation, it is time to reassess. I should add here that, contrary to the impression created by the Western media, not all of Zimbabwe's current problems are manmade. Drought has certainly played a role, but we should be aware, as history teaches us, that instability and hunger often stalk hand in hand. For this is the irony, the theft of the election was supposed to forestall collapse, instead it has hastened it and it has done so whilst making a mockery of the importance that we attach to democracy.

And so I find myself taking issue with Gareth Morgan. I accept his argument, I'm even prepared to acknowledge that things may not have been much better had Morgan Tsvangirai somehow won the popular vote and then persuaded the ruling regime to give up power. But I do not believe that it is better that he did not win. And let us be clear about this, he lost because the system was rigged, he lost because he was never even in the race. Even the governments of South Africa and Nigeria acknowledged this when they suspended Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth for a year. Mugabe's theft of the election guarantees that things will not get better for the people of Zimbabawe: their economy continues its dramatic contraction, their political system becomes ever more oppressive, their rights are systematically trampled on and worst of all, they have no hope of improvement in the near future. Which they would have if Morgan Tsvangirai had won. Even if his victory had been opposed. Perhaps worst of all though is the fact that Mugabe's actions and the lack of response from his neighbours seem to cast aspersions on the principle of democratic rule itself. If this rare bird is so important, then why was it killed so easily? If the idea of democracy is to have any real substantive value then it must be non-negotiable, no matter what the circumstances. That the will of the people can be so easily and so brazenly disregarded not only speaks badly of Mugabe but it also speaks badly of the esteem in which we in South Africa hold democracy.

The sheer indecency of Robert Mugabe's continued rule should move us to feel some sort of revulsion. This is a man who has wilfully subverted the principles of democracy, who, whilst mouthing the rhetoric of freedom and justice, has massacred his own people, who has secured his continued rule by, in some cases, making use of powers first acquired by the previous white minority government. This is a racist, homophobic, kleptocratic, autocrat, and so I say it is most definitely not a good thing that Morgan Tsvangirai did not win the election.

Last night it was suggested to me, by a Canadian, that one shouldn't accept a Rhodes Scholarship because Rhodes money is tainted. I found myself disconcerted, partly because the argument had never been put to me before. And this in itself is odd - after all, I'm from South Africa, which was the chief subject of Rhodes' imperialism. You'd think that, if one was to encounter this view anywhere, it would be there. But, on the contrary, not only has this argument never been seriously put to me, but our former President Mandela has gone out of his way to associate himself with the Rhodes Trust. What accounts for this discrepancy?

If I think about my own discipline, law, then its obvious that many of South Africa's greatest lawyers - Etienne Murienik, Edwin Cameron, Bram Fischer, Tony Honere, Laurie Ackerman, Kate O'Regan etc - are all products of the Rhodes Scholarship. And the reason for this is obvious - for a relatively isolated country, the Rhodes provides a vital link to the broader world of ideas. For South Africans, there are relatively few ways for us to make our way to the world's great universities. If I hadn't won a Rhodes, I'd probably be clerking in a Durban law firm. And I'm from the wealthiest class of South African society!

Against this background, quibbling about the ethics of accepting Rhodes money seems something of a luxury, best reserved for wealthier countries, where access to first-class universities is less difficult (in the Canadian context, one thinks of McGill and Toronto). If South Africans such as Fischer and Cameron had refused to accept Rhodes Scholarships, they would have done the country a huge disservice. I think that Mandela knows this and realises that for the new, more inclusive, generation of South Africans, the Rhodes continues to provide a unique opportunity that can only do the country good. And this far outweighs any doubts about the money's provenance.

Its too early to know what to make of the revelation that RS452 was one Vanessa Brereton of London and not Bulelani Ngcuka. But my hunch is that this is bad for Ngcuka's accusers. If the allegation is that Ngcuka specifically was RS452 then clearly they are discredited. But if it is that Ngcuka was linked with RS452 then things don't look good either. Brereton says that she has had enough of the 'lies and deceit' and wants to 'set the record straight' about Ngcuka. To me, this suggests that she wants to clear Ngcuka's name - or at least clarify that she had nothing to do with him.

One also has to consider why else she would have come forward. Having been an apartheid spy is nothing to be proud of. If she knew that she would drag Ngcuka down with her then the temptation would probably have been to lie low. But if coming forward allows her to clear his name then that provides some sort of incentive. She might regard this a type of redemption - by shaming herself publicly she extricates the country from a mess, thereby giving something back.

This is all speculative - we will have to see how things unfold. I should add though that I wouldn't be surprised if the Hefer Commission peters out. Bear in mind that Maharaj was in the cabinet when Ngcuka was appointed as Director of Public Prosecutions. If he had knowledge of Ngcuka's allegedly sordid past then, why didn't he speak out? After all, being Director of Public Prosecutions requires integrity and independence, and spying for the apartheid government isn't exactly suggestive of those qualities. At the very least, if Maharaj is proved right, that doesn't reflect well on him either - allowing Ngcuka to be appointed, knowing what he did, was irresponsible.

I know that Andrew thinks Ngcuka won't be in a job in 6 months but I rather hope that he is. I agree that he made a mess of the Zuma investigation but the mere fact that he undertook it - even if it got out of hand - shows admirable independence. Of course, Maharaj's allegations might yet be verified, in which case I will have to revise this assessment, but it doesn't look likely at the moment.

So, that's a wrap: M & G is reporting that the Hefer commission has uncovered the identity of apartheid government agent RS452.

'Vanessa Brereton, who now lives in London, contacted the commission last Sunday through a go-between and has agreed to prepare an affidavit to be submitted to the commission'.

So is this the end of the affair? Don't bet on it.

A friend of mine has just spent the last 2 weeks in Nigeria as part of a satellite uplink unit covering the All Africa games. He reports that:

'SA was leading in the medals count, but was strangely overtaken by Nigeria and Egypt. And yes, there has been some controversy over just how many Golds, Silvers and Bronze have been awarded. I don't know any more about the whole fiasco, but it doesn't really surprise me. In this last week there has been such an "Anti South African" feeling amongst the locals, they're almost going out of their way to make our lives difficult. Our Hockey Girls were in the Semi's and somehow they weren't able to give us any live pictures from that stadium.'

I've heard it said before that the rest of Africa takes a pretty dim view of South Africans but I've always assumed that this was a wild exaggeration or if it existed that it was limited to a small minority of people. Of course my friend's letter doesn't disprove this thesis but it does suggest that, at the very least, resentment of South Africans can no longer be simply dismissed. An issue that bears watching, I think..

Iain Murray has an interesting summary of a new report into the linkages between urban design and crime rates. Apparently all that stuff about needing to create 'common spaces' in order to encourage communities to 'reclaim' their neighbourhoods is misinformed, it does not lead to lower crime rates. Might be something in this for urban planners in South Africa, particularly with respect to low cost housing areas...

The Heffer Commission Round 1: The Sunday Times is reporting that Thabo Mbeki has refused to extend the Heffer commission's mandate to include an investigation of Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

This is depressing but not suprising. The govt is going to try and stage manage this entire process so that as little mud is flung as possible. Of course, in a sense, Mbeki is correct, the commission was established to determine the truth or otherwise of the claim that Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy and there is no reason why its mandate should be extended to include an entirely different matter. Nevertheless, a number of very damaging allegations have been made and Zuma himself has demanded the right to have his side of the story heard. That being the case, it would seem reasonable to expect that the President would use this opportunity to get to the bottom of all this. In theory, all the allegations and counter-allegations that have been thrown should be damaging the govts credibilty thus providing a very good reason to investigate and, presumably, establish innocence. The suicide of David Kelly and the investigation that it prompted in Britain spring to mind as an example of how to deal with this sort of problem correctly. I suppose it is too much to hope that the ANC would act with a similar level of accountability. As I've said before, I suspect that too many people in too high position are implicated in this to risk a comprehensive and independent investigation. The intention now seems to be to discredit Ngcuka before he can do any more damage. I'll wager a beer that, come what may of the commissions investigation and its findings, Ngcuka will no longer be Director of Public Prosecutions in 6 months time.

Dan Urman atOxBlog has links to two excellent articles about China written by fellow Oxford Political Scientist, Jackie Newmyer.

The first, which appeared in Policy Review in June analyses the reasons for the relative weakness of the Chinese airforce whilst the second appeared recently in the New York Times and looks at the future of Chinese space power. Both are excellent articles which I'd recommend you read if you have an interest in China.

Foot in mouth disease strikes again: This is amusing. A case of a man who disliked the product so much, that he brought the company..

Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy has a short, but favourable, review of JM Coetzee's new novel, Elizabeth Costello.

It always makes me happy to hear about foreigners taking an interest in South African writers and South African literature, (although Elizabeth Costello is in no sense a 'South African' novel, even the protagonist is Australian). South Africans have such little interest in literature that there is a tendency to bemusement ("our writers are so boring, all they do is write about Apartheid and its effects") or jingoism ("we've got 2 Nobel prize winners, you know") when, on the rare occasions that it does, our literature becomes a topic of discussion with foreigners. I think this bespeaks an inferiority complex of a sort, a feeling that we don't match up to the rest of the world so we should either ignore South African writers or eulogise them by means of overcompensation. Perhaps too, we still labour under the yoke of the Apartheid mindset viz intellectuals should be viewed with suspicion, they're likely to be consorting with the bad guys or conspiring to topple the state, in short they're up to no good. All of this is both unfounded, and a shame. South Africa has a small, but respectable, literature which we should feel able to take seriously without resorting to flights of patriotic fancy. So, as I say, I'm glad when foreigners comment favourably upon SA writers, perhaps its only when we realise that the rest of the world takes our literature seriously that we'll take it seriously ourselves.

What explains South Africa's policy of quiet diplomacy towards its imploding neighbour Zimbabwe? I've heard many theories - that South Africa is attempting to maintain stability in the region, that the ANC cannot bear to criticise a fellow veteran of the liberation struggle, and that Mbeki has no faith in the MDC as an alternative government. Truth be told, no one knows. All that we can do is speculate. And this suggests that, at the very least, the ANC has failed in one of the most fundamental duties of democratic government, which is to justify policy to the electorate. The proliferation of theories about Mbeki's true motives reflects poorly, to say the least, upon his ability to communicate policy to the very people whom he leads.

This week, a further speculative - and particularly interesting - interpretation of South Africa's stance was suggested by a fellow South African, Ntsiki Dinga, in an e-mail debate. Ntsiki's view is that South Africa is rapidly emerging as a continental hegemon, comparable to America in the rest of the world. Other African states resent this and feel threatened. If South Africa is to maintain its leading role in organisations such as Nepad and the African Union, then Mbeki cannot afford to alienate other African leaders. But he would if he played 'Big Brother' by attempting 'regime change' in Zimbabwe. Ultimately, if South Africa is to pursue its progressive agenda for Africa, it cannot afford to marginalise itself by acting unilaterally.

How convincing is Ntsiki's argument? Let's start by putting things in perspective. Zimbabwe is a country in which - as we speak - Africans are being tortured, food aid is being distributed along party lines so that many are starving, rape is being used as a tool of political oppression, the independence of the judiciary is being compromised, and freedom of speech destroyed. And so the list goes on. We don't need reminding of these facts. Dispossession of white farms is but one aspect of a broader pattern.

It goes without saying that these are appalling human rights abuses. Now, South African has one of the most progressive Constitutions in the world. Furthermore, Nepad - Africa's great hope at the moment - is founded squarely upon adherence to democratic principles. These values are fundamental; they should never be compromised, and supposedly, in terms of our Constitution, represent the 'deepest aspirations' of the South African people.

In light of this, South Africa's complete silence on Zimbabwe's human rights record is astonishing. Note, I said silence. In her e-mail, Ntsiki writes that other African leaders would be alarmed 'if SA charged into Zimbabwe and dethroned Bob.' I agree; that is unrealistic. But this overstates the alternatives to 'regime change' that are available. Is it too much to ask for, at the very least, an indication from the South African government that there are certain lines that no civilised nation should cross, and which Zimbabwe has? I refuse to accept that simply stating that South Africa condemns, say, torture, or closure of independent newspapers, would alienate South Africa to such an extent that its role in Nepad and the AU would be undermined.

Furthermore, the South African stance fosters the impression that the ANC is, fundamentally, not that committed to human rights and democracy. No other nation in Africa has declined as spectacularly, and with such publicity, as Zimbabwe in recent years. Ntsiki's argument is premised on the view that South Africa is attempting to pursue a progressive agenda for Africa as a whole. But how much credibility will organisations such as Nepad have when its members refuse to offer even token condemnation of transgressions of the principles that they purport to uphold? How can Mbeki 'sell' Nepad to the West as long as he remains silent about the situation unfolding over his border?

For these reasons, Ntiski's argument fails, I think, as a defence of ANC policy. But it also fails as an explanation. South Africa has gone beyond simply adopting a 'hands off' approach towards the Mugabe regime - which would be consistent with Ntsiki's view. Instead, the South African government is actively propping Mugabe up. Its no secret that South Africa is assisting Zimbabwe with food aid (distributed only to Mugabe's ZANU-PF cronies while others starve) and fuel needs. Furthermore, our foreign minister has stated that the ANC will 'never' condemn the Mugabe government. Never? No matter what? Such commitment bespeaks far more than a cautious pragmatism; it suggests that the ANC regards its relationship with Mugabe, the individual, as all important, despite the human suffering for which he's accountable.

That the ANC is willing to privilege a friendship over the most fundamental principles of civilised government does not bode well. It's something about which all of us - white and black - should be concerned.

I almost had heart palpitations when I saw this headline on News24: NG church welcomes gays. Was it possible, I wondered, that the NG Kerk was going to ordain gay priests and thus steal a march on the Anglican Church? In fact all that's happened is that they've agreed that, 'God asks us to reach out to homosexuals....' Presumably this means that gay people will now be allowed into the Church to attend services unhindered rather than being lynched by pious members of the congregation after the service ends.

Whew, the natural order of the world is restored, the NG Kerk is still living in the distant past..

On the reversion to the original template: I've decided that there is elegance in simplicity, thus the decision to go back to the white on blue template. More pertinently, I figured out how to put a links section onto the page, so we no longer have a need for the rather horrible template of the past 3 days.

The links section (on the right) is going to grow and change slowly over the next few weeks but for the moment I've linked to the blogs that we read on a regular basis. A brief word on each of them:

The Oxbloggers are 2 of our fellow Rhodes Scholars, from America. These guys have been very successful since getting going and are usually the first blog that I read each day. They tend to be right of centre, particularly on foreign policy issues, but they're on the ball and Oxblog is always worth reading. They achieved something of a coup earlier this year when they got a mention in the Washington Post and they've also been spoken of by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek magazine.

Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, is one of the 'big boys' in the bloggosphere and when they come to write the history of blogging he'll get a whole chapter to himself. He can be pretty esoteric at times and his blog tends to jump around a bit but everbody reads him because he's damn good.

Andrew Sullivan is another big name in blogging, and is probably something of an enigma to a lot of people: a gay man with (I believe) HIV who is a self-described neo-con and supporter of the Republicans. Sullivan sometimes goes off on rants, at which stage he's best avoided for a day or two, but he usually makes for thought provoking reading.

Iain Murray (at The edge of England's Sword) is a Brit living in the US. His blog is worth reading if only to counter the American bias of the blog world. That said he's a good read although his postings are a little infrequent.

The Volokh Conspiracy are a whole bunch of US academics writing from a loosely libertarian, free-market, individual rights perspective. I don't read them now as much as I used to but I still stop by an hour each week.

Matt Yglesias, is a usefull corrective to all the right of centre blogs out there. He's sceptical of the US's presence in Iraq and the Bush administration in general. Read him after the Oxbloggers to get a different perspective on things.

Amitai Etzioni is an academic and well-known communitarian philosopher. Another one who's worth reading to counter the heavy right-wing bias of the blogosphere.

I hardly ever read, Sasha Castel but she's got a very extensive blogroll (links section) for when you feel like branching out into the rest of the blog world.

Have fun with this....

The BBC on illegal Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa. This make for depressing reading. This particular sentence stands out:

'But the [train] guards can't stop dramatic getaways, such as the men prepared to leap from a moving train, risking their lives not to go back to Zimbabwe.'

What kind of desperation drives people to do something like this?

I confess to something of an ambivalence over this issue. Given that South Africa is now a contributing factor in the decline of Zimbabwe, through the moral and other forms of suasion it offers Mugabe, I think we have an obligation to those people who've chosen to flee the repression and the chaos in order to make new lives. Besides, deporting them, in addition to being expensive, is unlikely to work. The numbers are too great and the border is too porous.

The BBC is also reporting that the Zimbabwean govt has admitted that the land reform process is in chaos, with less than half the number of supposed beneficiaries receiving land. The report doesn't mention (or the Beeb hasn't reported) who the half are that have been given land, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they aren't from the poverty stricken classes. My bet is that the choicest bits of land have gone to Bob's cronies with the rest being parceled out to political supporters. Given that Bob was trying to use UN food aid as a political weapon a few months ago (those who supported the MDC found it much harder to receive food), I think its a pretty safe bet to say that MDC members haven't benefited from land reform either.

Reading about Zimbabwe makes my blood boil whilst Mbeki's unwillingness to do a damn thing about it makes me embarrassed to be a South African!

China in Space: Well, they did it, and they get my congratulations for it, but the BBC is right to ask what benefits accrue to China as a result of a manned space programme. The Beeb also points out that China has just:

'invested about $200m in the Galilleo satellite navigation system which is planned as an alternative to the United States' Global Positioning System.'

In addition to being useful for working out where airliners/ships etc are, GPS has a military function, which is to guide smart bombs and fighter jets to their targets. The Europeans (especially the French) have long been uncomfortable with their reliance on the US for this important function and hence the decision to go ahead with the Galilleo project. There's not much that Uncle Sam can do to stop the Europeans from acquiring their own satellite navigation system but I suspect that military planners in Washington are more than a little perturbed at the prospect of China acquiring such a capability too. And from America's erstwhile NATO allies to boot.

Meanwhile the Economist has a story chronicling the origins and potential future of the Chinese space programme. The most interesting sentence in the article, however, is the final one:

'Already, questions are being asked about why a developing country such as China needs international aid when it is financing a $2 billion human space programme.'

China receives considerable foreign development aid each year from, in particular, Japan. So one way of looking at the launch this week is to say that the Japanese have paid for their old rivals the Chinese to put a man into space, something which, although good for national pride, is of dubious economic value. It remains to be seen what comes of this...

I'm increasingly becoming a fan of the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane. In the row currently embroiling the Anglican church about the appointment of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in the United States, he seems to be one of the few voices of reason.

While some provinces have been threatening to declare that they are no longer in communion with the American Church, Ndungane has urged respect for diversity within the Church itself. He's noted that the issues of women priests and divorce are handled differently in different parts of the Church, and has urged that homosexuality should be no different. He's also cautioned against the selective use of biblical passages, pointing out that the bible has been used to defend practices such as slavery and apartheid.

In so doing, Ndungane has completely undercut the claim made by some African archbishops that homosexuality is intrinsically 'un-African' (Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Nigeria, has derided homosexuals as 'lower than beasts', and declared that the appointment of Gene Robinson is the 'work of Satan'). Implicitly, he's demonstrated that, like the Anglican Church, Africa is a diverse place with diverse values and cultural practices. You can read an outline of his views here.

Given that Ndungane's position was previously held by Desmond Tutu, it seems that the Anglican Church in Southern Africa is developing a habit of producing men who talk with moral authority.

Things are going to change around a bit over the next few days. Don't be alarmed, I'm just trying to establish the groundwork now so that future changes will be seamless and unoticeable - feedback, links etc. Stay tuned.

The South African Constitutional Court handed down an astonishing judgment this morning. In Alexkor Ltd v Richtersveld Community it found that a community removed from diamond-rich land in the twenties is entitled to compensation. The land has been mined for years now and is currently owned by Alexkor, a state company. According to the BBC, the decision might require the South African government to pay the tribe R10 billion. The community's lawyer is quoted as saying that one has to look at what the community would have earned had they retained ownership for the past 75 years. It goes without saying that this is an astronomical figure. So, is this justice at last, the law running its course, or simply irresponsible in a country where resources are so scarce? Let me know what you think. You can read the full judgment here. I'm going to refrain from commenting until I've read the decision properly; newspapers tend to be unreliable on things legal.

Iain Murray (Blogger in Chief at The edge of England's sword) takes up the question of why the number of people turning out to vote in Britain has declined so precipitously over the last decade or so. I agree, partly, that as govt has withdrawn from the commanding heights of the economy so too do people have less of a reason to worry about who is in control but I suspect that the major reason may be that for most of the 1960s and 1970s, British politics was very finely balanced between Labour and Tory and this, combined with the very different policies the parties were offering at the time, created a huge incentive for voters to turn out for elections. I also suspect that in this post-modern era, the idea of identifying with parties or even with politicians no longer holds much water. People who feel strongly about issues are far more likely to take to the streets, join movements (or set up blogs). It's not that people no longer have an incentive to vote (because govt no longer pays their wages), but rather that most people have realised the limitations of traditional party politics or, at least, they think they have.

I'm gonna think about this a bit more, it's an interesting question..

On Friday I saw a very good play by South African playwright Greg Coetzee (of 'White Men with Weapons' fame) called 'Happy Natives.' The play starred an old friend of mine - Ben Voss - and the excellent Sello Sebotsane, whom I'd previously seen in Brett Bailey's 'Big Dada' at the Grahamstown Festival. Given that this blog also covers cultural matters, I thought I'd attempt a review.

'Happy Natives' was apparently written in response to the narratives that typically emerge from, or are written about, South Africa - tales of adversity, of good versus evil, that culminate in happy, dancing indigenous people. Instead, Coetzee aims to show us the complexities of the real South Africa, being played out between ordinary people in the suburbs of Durban.

Kenneth, an actor, has been in London for two years. If you're a white English-speaking South African, you'll recognise him, if you're not him yourself. He claims that London is 'lapping him up' because 'South Africans know how to work hard - no safety net for us.' Mysteriously, despite his alleged success, he's living with his parents. All his money, he explains, is 'wrapped up off-shore.' Kenneth also claims to be 'African' - whatever that means. In Kenneth's case, it involves a sprinkling of Zulu, an awkward political correctness and a vague yearning for Durban's waves.

Back in Durban, Kenneth meets an old friend of his, Mto, from university (where Kenneth produced a dialectic between Marx and the bushmen - the world's 'only true socialists'). He invites Mto to participate in a production with him - a government project, intended to attract foreign investment to South Africa - and Mto agrees. The process of their collaboration gives rise to the central events of the play, which are juxtaposed against the narrative they produce - a tale of adversity, replete with wildlife and Nelson Mandela, that culminates in happy, dancing natives. The juxtaposition is deliberate; the world of Kenneth and Mto, it quickly becomes obvious, is far more morally complex than their representations of South Africa, which are intended to 'sell' the country to a foreign audience.

Apart from Kenneth and Mto, Ben and Sello play several other characters - Mto's racist neighbour Jimmy; Jimmy's domestic servant Prudence; an Indian storekeeper; a government minister; and a policeman. Their ability to switch between roles is impressive, and the picture of South Africa, and especially Durban, that emerges is familiar, convinving, and - for those overseas - nostalgic.

I won't delve too deeply into the events of the play. That would be boring and, besides, you might want to see it yourself. Suffice it to say that 'Happy Natives' culminates in Kenneth being excluded from the production. He assumes that this is because he is white and immediately undertakes to return to London on an ancestral visa. He tells Mto that is 'tired of apologising for the colour of his skin.' He says this with no hint of the dreadful irony involved. Compared with what black people such as Mto have been through, he has nothing to complain about. Given what he would have been through had he been black, he should count himself as fortunate. His African-ness - his few Zulu phrases, his little Zulu shield that he carries around, his determination to learn black peoples' 'real' names - crumbles as a mere affectation.

The other whites in the play don't come off much better. Jimmy is an unreconstructed racist - an ex-soldier still traumatised from doing border patrol in Mozambique. Chanaye, on the other hand, is what we South Africans call a 'kugel.' Vain, wealthy and shallow. She is learning Zulu, and carefully cultivates black clients, but only for commercial advantage. The heroine of the play turns out to be Prudence, who is revealed as caring, generous and morally steadfast. As for Mto, his integrity briefly lapses when he becomes complicit in Kenneth's exclusion from the production, but, other than that, he seems decent, level-headed and fair.

All of this left me wondering: what role for white people in South Africa? 'Happy Natives' criticises whites who, in the face of the enormous cultural changes being wrought around them, retreat into the dead-end of fearful prejudice (like Jimmy), keep one foot firmly in England while claiming African-ness (like Kenneth) or who adjust for all the wrong reasons (like Chanaye). This shouldn't be seen as a criticism; this is how many - most? - whites have adjusted to their new society. But I found myself wondering about the alternatives. How can whites, as a cultural minority, feel themselves to be rooted in South African society? How can they feel themselves to be 'African', if you will? And how can whites live positively and confidently, projecting a genuine future for themselves on the Southern tip of Africa? These, to my mind, are the more interesting questions. I'd like to see art that takes them up.

The Chinese are about to put a man into space! In itself this is not particularly momentus, it comes 40 years after the Soviets sent Yuri Gagarin into space and will be achieved using technology purchased from the cash-strapped Russian programme. However it does give some indication of the determination of the Chinese to be seen as the equal of the West and especially of the US. If great powers have space programmes, then China must have a space programme and, if the reports are to be believed, they are deadly serious. Rumours abound on the net that they're going to send someone to the moon within the next decade! In any event, rocketry is not exactly a safe science and at the moment my thoughts are with Yang Liwei, thought to be the man destined to become the first 'taikonaut'.

It will be interesting to see whether China's efforts provide a much needed spur to NASA's moribund manned space programme. Another space race is out of the question but the prospect of red China establishing a moon base or getting to Mars first might give Uncle Sam a kick in the rear. Something for the next generation of rocket scientists to think about.

Speaking of space, Nigeria kicked off its space programme 2 weeks ago by launching a British-made satelite into orbit. I'm not quite sure what the Nigerians are up to with this one. The Economist speculates that this may be another 'prestige' project, of the type that have plagued Nigeria in the past. Nevertheless, for the paltry sum of $13 million dollars it could probably be considered good advertising for the country and, if it all works as advertised, could even earn its keep.

Is it just me or does this smack of Dr Frankenstein?

Trying to make sense of the Bulelani Ngcuka spy saga...

There is something rotten about this whole affair. As near as I can understand it, this is what has happened. A few months ago allegations surfaced that Deputy President Jacob Zuma had profited from the arms deal through his connections to Chippy Schaik - Schaik himself appears to have used his involvement in the arms deal to further his own interests, to say the least. Bulelani Ngcuka, the National Director of Public Prosecutions investigated and after some time (during which much mud was thrown) concluded that there was a prima facie case to be made against Zuma but that he lacked sufficient evidence to make the charges stick. To my mind, this was outrageous. Either he had evidence against Zuma, in which case he should have taken him to court or he didn't in which case he ought to have kept quiet. Making a claim against the Deputy President is a serious affair. Making a claim but then adding that you can't prove it is either evidence of Ngcuka's extreme naivete or of something much bigger, a conspiracy to oust Zuma possibly. Zuma himself was, understandably, upset and wasted no time telling everyone who would listen that he wanted his day in court so as to establish his innocence.

Meanwhile reports had begun to surface that high ranking members of the ANC where becoming uncomfortable with Ngcuka's apparent tenaciousness in pursuing Zuma. The Sunday Times suggested that Thabo Mbeki himself might be about to pull in Ngcuka's reigns a bit. It was not surprising therefore that shortly after Ngcuka made his claim against Zuma, stories began to circulate that Ngcuka had in fact been a spy for the Apartheid govt. Strictly speaking, I don't think that he is accused of having done anything illegal, but the allegations, if true, would certainly make it inappropriate for him to continue in his present position and indeed to remain a member of the ANC. So, the Heffer Commission was set up to investigate the claim against Ngcuka. Then, suddenly, last week Penuell Maduna, Minister of Justice and therefore Ngcuka's political head announced that he and Ngcuka were both the subjects of a smear campaign and that he wanted the Heffer commissions mandate to be widened to include him, presumably on the basis that it would find him not guilty of any wrong doings (a deputy general in the justice dept had accused him of favouritism). The DA meanwhile has launched a campaign to have Zuma investigated by the Heffer commission, making the argument (quite reasonably I suppose) that since most of the allegations against Ngcuka emanate from the 'Zuma Camp' it is right that Zuma himself have to answer some questions. Presumably, Zuma should have no problem with this since he claims to want the opportunity to air his case and clear his name. Still with me? Today, News24 is reporting that Maduna wants out of parliament although his spokesman carefully added that he is, 'not trying to run away' from allegations against himself and Ngcuka. We have not heard the last of this...

A few thoughts on all this. Clearly something big is going on within the ANC. The timing of the Ngcuka spy story leak is just too fortuitous to be anything other than a deliberate effort to impugn the name of a man who appeared to be doing a pretty good job of destroying the reputation of the second most important politician in the country. Who benefits from all this? One theory is that this is all groundwork for the next leadership contest. Either Mbeki intends to amend the constitution and run for a 3rd term in which case his camp has been playing the part of puppeteer quite masterfully, destroying the reputation of a man who might oppose such a change (Zuma) and then that of the servant who knowingly or unknowingly had done his bidding (Ngcuka). Or, and this seems more likely, everybody believes that Mbeki will stand down and thus this is the sort of jostling for position that one would expect. Zuma, it is said, is (perhaps that should now be was) a front runner to be Mbeki's replacement and thus a lot of people might have an interest in seeing him taken down. Another theory (and this is the one that I favour) is that Ngcuka diligently set about investigating the claims against Zuma and was both way more independent than people had supposed him to be and pretty successful at uncovering the dirt. If some of the stories about the arms deal are to be believed (that several high ranking members of the ANC have benefited from it) then Ngcuka's tenaciousness and independence posed a real threat. Thus he had to be taken down before he was able to do more damage. In this version of events, Ngcuka is basically the good guy, although he was naive to make those unsubstantiated claims against Zuma and Zuma, or some murky cabal of wrong doers are the bad guys. Quite what Maduna has to do with all this is a mystery. It seems implausible to suggest that he is standing down because a claim of favouritism was made against him. He's an experienced politician with a thick skin and he's sat out controversies in the past that seemed far more serious than a simple allegation of favouritism. Hopefully, the Heffer commissions remit will be widened to include Zuma (as the DA has demanded) and Maduna (as he appears to want), at this stage it appears to be the only hope of getting to the bottom of all this..

Leaving aside for the moment the reasons why people might want to implicate Bulelani Ngcuka in an apartheid era spy ring something else interests me about the Ranjeni Munusamy case. In an era when potentially anyone with access to a computer is a journalist (witness Southern Cross) what right do 'real' i.e. print and TV journalists have to smear the name of an individual and then plead 'journalistic ethics' as a reason not to reveal the source of their information. Of course, I understand the need to protect sources in order to encourage whistleblowers to come forward but as the internet de-centralises journalism, these types of questions become more and more pertinent. Lets assume that Southern Cross achieves a daily readership in the thousands (this is small beer in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of daily hits that the big American bloggers get) we could destroy an individuals reputation by implying something about their past or their character and then claim that our journalistic integrity prevents us from revealing our sources. At the very least in cases where the only evidence is a single unnamed source and the allegation has potentially serious consequences, the journalist should either have to reveal the source or be prepared to suffer the consequences. Or corroborate the allegations through other sources.

Returning to the big question though, who has an interest in smearing the good name of Bulelani Ngcuka? Ahem, step forward Mr Deputy President...

Now that we're up and running a few people have been in touch to find out how they can respond to posts. At the moment there is no plan to include a feedback option, although that may change if either of us learns how to use HTML (any experts are invited to get in touch). For the moment however, you're welcome to leave messages in the guestbook commenting on posts (it's at the bottom of the page) or email either of us. If the email adds something interesting/is controversial/you are a pretty, single woman, we'll post it on the page and you'll achieve instant fame ;-)

Our addresses are:
andrew[dot]black[at]exeter[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk or
murray[dot]wesson[at]exeter[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk

Go to it, we've been controversial, I'm sure we've rubbed a few people up the wrong way..

Are we surprised by this? Charles Taylor should be facing a court for crimes against humanity not living it up, at tax-payers expense, in his new mansion in Nigeria. Speaking of the Nigerians, I'm afraid that I don't hold out much hope for them as blue helmets in Liberia. The last time Nigeria got involved in peace-keeping (in Sierra Leone) they became part of the problem. I'd feel much more comfortable about the hand over in Liberia if the US was involved. Those marines sitting off-shore must be getting pretty bored kicking their heals and waiting for some action...

Hi, this is my first entry on Southern Cross. Andrew and I decided to start this blog because were both rather disappointed by the poor level of debate in and about South Africa. In general, the South African press is rather lacklustre and we seem to lack a public sphere equivalent to that which exists in the US and UK. We've also both been impressed by the British press and the fact that US students seem keen on debating their national issues - especially in the blogosphere. Since we discuss politics a lot anyway, we thought there'd be no harm in putting our thoughts online and trying to get more people involved. Not that we think we can change anything over night. But it would be great to hear from others who are interested. As this blog develops, we're also likely to branch out into UK and maybe US issues. But, as the name implies, South and Southern Africa will be the focal point.

Where to start? I thought I'd kick off by adding my two cents worth to the voting debate. For those out of the loop, the ANC has amended the Electoral Act so as not to allow South Africans abroad to vote, ostensibly on the basis of resource constraints. Now, most South Africans overseas are white and its no secret that most whites - although not all - are unlikely to vote for the ANC. I therefore don't think its particularly controversial to conclude that the political advantage that would accrue to the ANC as a result of this amendment was - at the very least - a factor taken into account.

Like Andrew, however, I was surprised by the response that this suggestion provoked during an e-mail discussion. At least one camp insinuated that even holding this view betrays some sort of prejudice, or inherant lack of faith in the present government. Any criticism of the ANC seems to immediately lump you in with those who believe that the country as whole is going down the tubes because blacks can't govern etc. Needless to say, this is an extremely unhealthy situation. Democracy thrives on public debate; it is not meant to stifle it. As the late Edward Said once remarked, 'I want there to be a Palestinian state so that I can begin to criticise it.' As young educated South Africans we should see this as our task; diligently constructing defences of questionable government policy isn't going to get us anywhere.

Enough of that. Andrew's said this better than me. I thought I'd pick up on one very interesting remark that Andrew made. He said that the right to vote is a right and shouldn't be subject to resource constraints. Given that I've just written an Mphil on socio-economic rights in the South African Constitution, I naturally feel compelled to comment on this.

Firstly, all rights cost something. That might seem surprising. After all, certain rights - such as the right not to be tortured - seem only to require that the government abstain from doing certain things. But, if the right not to be tortured is to mean anything, the state has to provide a system of independent courts for its enforcement. Otherwise it isn't a legal right. And that does cost money. For a good book on this see The Cost of Rights by Holmes and Sunstein.

That said, some rights cost more than others. And, here, sadly, resource constraints do determine the scope of rights. This is obvious in relation to socio-economic rights, such as the right of access to housing, which are expressly framed in terms of available resources. But its also the case with more well-established rights, such as the right to be tried within a reasonable time. I won't go into details but there's a Canadian case called R v Askov in which the Supreme Court implicitly took resource constraints into account in determining what constitutes a reasonable time within which to be tried.

Now, most relevantly to our present discussion, the right to vote also costs a lot of money. As a result, when adjudicating this right, the South African Constitutional Court has employed what we lawyers call 'low-intensity' review. In the NNP and DP cases - which challenged the government's decision to restrict voting to people with bar-coded IDs - the Court held that the state need only show a 'rational connection' between the electoral scheme established and the purpose that it was seeking to achieve, namely, a free and fair election. The Court's reason for adopting this stance was, reading between the lines, that elections cost money and require a great deal of complex organisation that the judiciary is ill-equipped to oversee.

Regarding the present controversy, it seems clear that the government's argument - that resource constraints prevent it from extending the vote overseas - is rational, even if we have reason to think it is disingenuous. For this reason, I don't think that a legal challenge would succeed. That's not to say that I agree with the government's decision. As mentioned, I agree with Andrew that its a cynical move. Its just not one that can be resolved through the courts.

There's been a veritable avalanche of stuff on the impact of Iraq on US foreign policy but comparatively less on what the war and its outcome portend for Tony Blair and Great Britain. I have to confess that I'm a relative neo-phyte when it comes to British foreign policy but it seems to me that after Iraq, Blair is something of a busted flush. It's hard to imagine him backing the US on any major initiative in the near future (not that that is likely anytime soon) and it also seems unlikely that he would commit Britain to the sort of intervention based on humanitarian principles that seemed to be his trademark. For those of us who had hoped that Britain's intervention in Sierra Leone might herald the beginning of re-engagment with Africa, this is unfortunate. Iraq probably marks the end of a particularly Blairite foreign policy and sinks the chance of a more outward looking Britain prepared to intervene in places that have little strategic importance. Charles Grant has an article in this month's Prospect magazine (you may need to dig around a bit) which goes into this in more detail, suggesting that Britain will need to regroup and focus on re-building links with Europe before it moves forward. Nothing much in this for Africa, I'm afraid, except to say that now that Uncle Sam has decided not to play ball in Liberia it seems unlikely that anyone is going to take much of an interest in our affairs for a while. Does France's involvement in the Ivory Coast count? I suspect not. The number of French interventions premised upon humanitarian principles could be counted on one finger!

Interesting interview with Josh Chafetz, founding member of Oxblog. The guys at Oxblog really are amongst the best in the business and have achieved an amazing amount in a very short space of time. Go read the interview to find out Josh's thoughts on blogging, Rhodes Scholarships, life in the UK and the joys of being a neo-con.

I want to return to the issue of overseas voting..

When the news of this decision broke 2 weeks ago a number of the South Africans at Oxford launched an email discussion to debate the pros and cons of what had happened. The thing that most struck me about the way that people reacted was the polarisation of opinion. One of the correspondents accused me of being offensive for suggesting that most South Africans abroad were unlikely to be ANC supporters. Another suggested that it wasn't the govt that we ought to reserve our cynicism for but the media source that broke the story (and which I've linked to down the page). At the other end of the spectrum were the usual bunch of jeremiahs proclaiming that this was yet another step towards the inevitable abyss. I found this disturbing but not surprising. The apologists in their rush to come to the ANC's defence had ignored what was screamingly obvious, namely that the govt had calculated that it would do better by preventing expats from voting and used its power to amend the bill accordingly. Admitting this appeared to be tantamount to what... treason, lack of faith in South Africa, reactionary conservatism? My sense is that for some white South Africans, the claim to a place in SA is contingent upon blind support for the ANC. Thus you can be cynical about everything else but you can't be cynical about the ANC.

The ANCs decision is good politics of course although hypocritical from an organisation that claims to be the defender of democracy in SA. It reveals a rather disturbing ambivalence about the importance of the right to vote but, nevertheless, it doesn't herald the beginning of the end. Which was a point lost on some of the other contributors to the discussion.

So is this the trend? You can either be a hyper-patriot who slavishly toes the party line or you can throw your hands up in horror and preach the end? What is so lacking in debates about SA are calm rational voices whose loyalties lie neither to party nor to the past but to the truth. Bring on the sceptics, I say.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
Review by Kristin Anderson
In the penultimate chapter of Dark Star Safari (2003, Penguin), Paul Theroux spies on a crumpled Johannesburg newspaper a teasing headline reading "PESSIMISTIC GLOBETROTTER WINS NOBEL PRIZE". He had started out from Cairo several months previously, and had not, as per his goal upon embarking, had much contact with Western culture since. Thus although the caption refers, of course, to his sometimes friend V.S. Naipaul, the momentary prospect of "Swedish lottery" laurels (his term) generates in him the same fleeting hope as "the overhead drone of one of those search and rescue planes that misses the castaway adrift in a rubber dinghy".

Though the briefest of digressions, in a way this side-noted anecdote, with its concomitant vanity and self-deprecation, distils both the troubling and the enjoyable aspects of Theroux's travelogue style - the egotism mingled with modesty, the authorial self-consciousness, the qualified pessimism, the harsh candour, the sardonic humour, the understated hope. He's a charismatic writer—funny, erudite, adventurous yet eschewing Hemingway-esque machismo. Safari evidences this in a well-balanced blend of personal anecdote, socio-political context, literary allusion, and dialogues with presidents and goatherds alike. Moreover, given his previous residency in Malawi and Uganda during the sixties, his fluency in Swahili and Chichewa, and his well-researched approach to travel in general, Theroux's has the potential to be a sagacious and authoritative voice to follow through Africa. And for the most part he lives up to his potential: there's a lot to like about this book.

For starters, Safari's descriptive passages are oftentimes lovely and certainly (sometimes disconcertingly) original. Take, for instance, Theroux's depiction of the hackneyed "African" sunset, which becomes in his hands a "canopy as hot pink as molten gold, fringed with orange and purply blue, with beaky faces and filigree, a scattering of mashed hyacinths, a shattered syllabub, a melting light show..."; or, more disturbingly, "corporeal, incarnadine, a great bleeding liver slab of sky that slips into separate slices, discolouring, drying into crisp fritters, and fragments of friable light..." His first impression of the denizens of Addis Ababa is similarly evocative: they were "handsome people in rags, possessed of both haughtiness and destitution, a race of aristocrats who had pawned the family silver." Even when he talks of more inelegant subjects ("The men pulled off their shoes…the pong of their cheesy feet filled the upper deck."), his prose remains grimly vivid.

His pervasive humour, too, makes for a good read. He peppers the narrative with sardonic asides and plenty of the ironies of travel (the Shona grandmother in a "Notre Dame College Summer Ice Hockey" t-shirt, a septuagenarian souvenir-hawker pissing apathetically on a Gizan pyramid, the Vodacom advert in the middle of bushveld), but it also makes more spotlighted appearances, such as in his transcriptions of the non-sequitur-filled exchanges had when neither conversant is particularly familiar with the other's language (instead of the requested street directions, an unsolicited 'Bush is Satan'; a hesitant 'What kind of meat is this?' met by a terse 'Yes.'). He also relishes sniping at fellow travellers. When he hitches a ride with a bunch of overlanders, for example, he comments: "After months of trucking in Africa everyone on board has the dull torpid smile and brain-damaged look of a cultist... If you had asked any of them where we had travelled the answer would have been, 'Was that where Kevin barfed?', or, 'Was that where the road sucked?'" Slightly hypocritical given the amount of verbiage he devotes road conditions, but deliciously spot-on, too. And perhaps one of the more sublime passages is his account of a gigolo's offers to take him down the Nile to a location where, "in a quaint felucca...unobserved in the shadows of overhanging ferns," he could "find the Nubian banana" (the gigolo's terminology, not-fortunately-Theroux's).

Sex, incidentally, is the root of much of the humour in this book-and is the crux of a good portion of Theroux's introspection as well. Although he attempts to legitimise his appetites by claiming normalcy (the young, he asserts, would be surprised by the sexual energy of the older generations), his taste is eccentric, and one revels uneasily in the Nabokovian boldness of his fantasies. A passage describing the sensual pleasures gleaned from watching pineapple juice drip down the faces of three adolescent girls is presented unapologetically. Moreover, his continual fraternization with prostitutes (not carnally, he mentions, as "all the talk of AIDS kept me detumescent") is driven, he explains, sometimes by journalistic curiosity (investigating Michael Maren's claim in The Road to Hell that, "from an economic point of view, going into prostitution is a rational decision for African women."); but mostly either by genuine sexual interest ("she was seventeen at most, wearing a glittery red dress with sequins and high heels, ...spirited and pretty..., the kind of girl I might have met at a university party thirty-five years before"), or by simple desperation for human contact ("Even the prostitutes avoided me, unless I bought them drinks, which I did out of pure loneliness, like one of those geezers you see on back streets at odd hours feeding stray cats, a displacement activity this much resembled").

To his credit, of course, he also pokes fun at his lecherous proclivities, describing a chance encounter with a woman who had in hand Theroux's earlier, semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman, My Secret History. When asked, the stranger describes it as, "Fantastic. It's about this bloke in Africa, shagging all these African women." Without claiming authorship, Theroux protests revealingly, "But it's a novel." "Reckon so," is the sceptical rejoinder.

In addition to his sex drive, he also doesn't miss opportunities to show off his breadth of knowledge. Obviously well-versed in various political and cultural histories, he writes with confidence on terrain varying from the methodological evolution of Egyptian archaeology to the relative potencies and effects of each region's local hallucinogens and homebrews. Of course, although they are always interesting and usually topical, these asides are sometimes interjected with the stylistic awkwardness and pretension of the classroom know-it-all ("...the naked woman-who, by the way, being a Mursi might not have been wearing a dress but would have worn a saucer-sized plug in her lower lip"). As a result, his tone can be quite patronising at times, and at his worst he is condescending enough (particularly towards the intellect of other travellers) to appear insecure about his capacity to justify his own journey's uniqueness (and therefore ensure its suitability for the page). But this is only a minor quibble, not a major grievance.

The sheer diversity of Theroux's encounters is astonishing. He spends long hours with his old friend Nadime Gordimer in Johannesburg; he journeys to the Rastafarian community in Shashamene, Ethiopia; he explores Rimbaud's old homes in Harar; he drives across the "gritty wadis of the Sudanese desert" to the Temple of Hatshepsut; he spends a Cairo evening in the fin-de-siecle-style literary salon of Naguib Mahfouz (Mahfouz himself remaining largely silent, recalls Theroux, only speaking once to claim that the allied bombing of Iraq after the no-fly zone incident "is like the random attack in Camus' The Stranger"); he interviews former political prisoners in Kenya and Uganda and everywhere else he can; he rides in a dugout down the Shire River to the Zambezi; he reminisces with another old friend, the prime minister of Uganda; and he eventually does make it back to the run-down Soche Hill School in Malawi where he used to teach.

For the most part, however, it is his frankness that makes him an engaging and convincing travel writer. For one, upon departure he romanticizes neither his motivations nor his aspirations. Partly, he says, he embarks out of curiosity about a region constantly sensationalized and patronized to by international media ("goaded by editors to feed a public hungering for proof of savagery on earth, reporters stood near starving Africans in their last shaking fuddle, and intoned on the TV news ... 'And these people'-cue a close-up of a death rattle-'these are the lucky ones'"). Mostly, though, his departure was inspired by "the greatest justification for travel…not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act... As Huck put it, lighting out for the territory." A desire, in short, to escape the din of mobile phone and fax machine: self-centred, he acknowledges, but sound. His voyage is also doubles as a sort of homecoming: starting in Cairo and heading to Cape Town, he intends to revisit en route Uganda and Malawi, both places where he formerly lived and taught. His goals thus laid out, he heads south in "my usual travelling mood-hoping for the picturesque, expecting misery, braced for the appalling." (A fair, un-romanticized assessment of backpacker mentality.)

He displays equal forthrightness when describing his modus operandi. While travelling as frugally as possible, he makes no bones about indulging in occasional luxuries, and it's hard to forget that he's not your average budget traveller. Yes, he hitches lots of rides and eats local pap and kopenta and drinks Chibuku, but he also splashes out on posh hotels and trains; he can bribe his way out of trouble; he sups with monarchs and presidents and Nobel laureates when he hits towns. Not that this is a problem: the variety only enriches his narrative. Indeed, inasmuch as any foreigner can have an "authentic travel experience", he convinces the reader that he has had it: descending towards South Africa via train, taxi, matatu, bakkie, chapa, cargo ship or canoe-whatever it takes-his narrative is one that for the most part shies away from traditional "safari" ("safari", he reminds us, means "journey" in Swahili and has nothing to do with big game hunting) voyeurism and disengagement. He studiously avoids sentimentality and glib summary, and is for the most part unafraid of delineating paradox or problem without presenting superficial solutions.

Most compellingly for me, however, is his candour in transcribing his darker, more ignoble thoughts in addition to their salutary or amusing counterparts. When leaving Kenya, for instance, he passes, "shop after shop of woodworkers, all of them making coffins-the freshly cut raw wood, reddish in the dampness... This was the busiest local industry I had seen in the whole of Kenya: the coffin-makers and their lugubrious product... I made a note of those coffins, and sketched pictures of their shapes and sizes. But I also noted that, sitting in these buses watching Africa go by, getting off whenever I liked, I was travelling happily, in a state of great contentment."

It's a rare writer that acknowledges this aspect of travel-the occasional complacency of the conscientious tourist, the oscillating ebb of one's guilt about others' misfortune. In Zimbabwe, he notes with similar honesty the appearance of a distanced, journalistic voyeurism. There, the imminence of disaster not only worries him but excites him: "I felt stimulated, sensing that I was witnessing something that did not yet have a name... Something radical was going to happen - no one knew what. At that point catastrophe was just a warning odor, a tang of bitterness in the air..."

Although it also works to his disadvantage, as is seen below, one of the most persuasive traits of his prose is this sincerity in the face of politically-correct expectations. "Men are beasts all over the world," he says, "But the lepers, hyenas, ivory tusks and garbage, complaining donkeys, open drains in the cobbled alleys, the tang of spices...the moans of people's prayers, the dark-eyed invitation to a shadowy hut, the howls of 'Foreigner!' All these explained why Rimbaud had been so happy here. He had liked Africa for being the anti-Europe, the anti-West, which it is, sometimes defiantly, sometimes lazily. I liked it for those reasons, too, for there was nothing of home here." His un-moralising conclusion, while inciting discomfiture in a vigilant postcolonial readership, also rings true: when it comes down to it, one travels to get away from the routine and familiar. Ultimately, pleasure and interest arise precisely from that sense of diversity, of change, of "lighting out".

Nevertheless, Theroux is very much aware of his postcolonial context. Citing his literary predecessors (Conrad, Haggard, Dinesen, Rimbaud, Burton) with self-conscious frequency, he is overtly aware of the myriad cliches associated with European portraits of Africa and thus is usually successful in avoiding them. Instead, for instance, of stuffing his book with real-time passages detailing the various hold-ups encountered on the road, he merely remarks on the triteness of such passages in African travelogues and then ironically detours through an analogy between literal transportation delays and literary digressions. Heart of Darkness' "halting and deliberately tangential" narrative, he then suggests, is the perfect textual emblem not only of African travel delays but of a "continent delayed-economies in suspension, societies up in the air, politics and human rights put on hold, communities throttled or stopped." But, he says, referring to his earlier criticisms of the international media's sensationalism, this is only everyday life: "who wants to hear about it? This paragraph is already too long."

Resultantly, he has an ambivalent relationship with his literary predecessors. While he admires some of their reflections and certainly sees himself following in their footsteps ("...Arthur Rimbaud, patron saint of all of us travellers who have echoed his unanswerable question, first uttered by him in Harar, What am I doing here?"), he also spends much energy enumerating the evils and futility of imperialism, and the tyranny of the colonial narrative, and the insidiousness of colonial social residues. Shelley's "Ozymandias" gets turned against the hubris of the British Empire, and the current mayor of Toronto, who recently refused to go to Kenya lest he "end up in a cooking pot," is justly compared to Conrad and Haggard, whose primitive cannibals typified racist stereotypes a hundred years previously.

This awareness of literary context, however, is merely an aspect of his very obvious self-awareness as a writer. This is not Africa-through-a-traveller's-eyes but rather Paul-Theroux-writing-Africa, and he seldom lets the reader forget it. Nobel-Prize expecations intact, Theroux writes, for example, of Gordimer's powerful recreation of Johannesburg and says that he hopes his own narrative to be equally evocative of place and climate...or possibly "even better than the real thing". His self-consciousness is as amazing as his egotism, and while it's not as distasteful as it could be (indeed, this intentionally authorial voice can make his narrative very resonant and compelling), it at times renders it off-puttingly unnatural (as well as simply irritatingly conceited). His eponymous "dark star" metaphor transforms the Africa through which he travels into "a parallel universe...in which everyone existed as a sort of shadow-counterpart of someone in the brighter world...the doppelgangers of the folks in that other world". A great image, and yet he comes back to it with unnatural and jarring frequency, oftentimes dropping it into seemingly irrelevant passages and returning to it seemingly only so that he could title his book accordingly.

Despite his clumsy invocations of it, however, the dark star image reflects well Theroux's primary political themes. His socio-political thrust is three-pronged: the first is a literary plea for the wrong-doings of the past (both colonial and post-) to be recorded ("University students had asked me, 'How can we become better known writers?' But the real question should have been, 'What should we be writing?' and the answer was: 'about those lost years'"). The second, as mentioned above, is international: he condemns the lack of varied and in-depth reportage on African issues, decrying media organizations for sensationalistically focusing on the negative to the extent of depicting Africa as a lost cause. The third, his most emphatic criticism, is economic: after decades of exposure to international aid, nothing, he says, has improved for Africa-countries have not picked themselves up, their peoples are no better clothed or fed or educated.

The international aid organizations come under heavy fire for this. In Theroux's eyes, Africa now has a less promising future than the Africa he knew as a Peace Corp volunteer years ago: international charities and World Bank loans are bolstering up dictatorships and extortionists, and the idealistic foreign volunteers of his youth have been replaced by loud, prosthelytizing, embezzling materialists driving swanky Land Rovers. He doesn't mince words in his condemnations. "There were many vehicles in Mzuzu," he observes, "the most expensive of them of course were the white four-wheel-drives displaying the doorside logos of charities, every one that I ever heard of and some new ones-People to People, Mission Against Ignorance and Poverty, The Food Project, Action Aid, Poverty Crusade, and more... For every agent of virtue I saw slogging his or her guts out in the field, I saw two of them joy-riding." He is particularly harsh with evangelical missionaries for familiar reasons-preaching the wrong gospel by teaching Christ instead of condoms-and thus continually draws scathing parallels to Dickens' self-interested Mrs. Jellyby with her "African Project." (She had said, "We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha".)

Seeking reinforcement of his suspicions, he interviews Dr. Jonathan Banda, a Malawian who now teaches political science at Georgetown. Dr. Banda agrees that, "The donors aren't contributing to development. They maintain the status quo. Politicians love that, because they hate change. The tyrants love aid. Aid helps them stay in power and it contributes to underdevelopment. It's not social or cultural and it certainly isn't economic. Aid is one of the main reasons for underdevelopment in Africa." Africa will never succeed, Theroux decides prescriptively, without the individual initiative which it at present lacks. Instead of "the necessitous routine, not philanthropic but a permanent drip-feed, part of a system of handouts," the best thing for Africa writ large would be if the aid organizations pulled out altogether. "Perhaps that was why I liked rural Africa so much, and avoided towns, because in villages I saw self-sufficiency and sustainable agriculture," he concludes. "In the towns and cities of Africa, not the villages, I felt the full weight of all the broken promises and thwarted hope and cynicism... In such towns I felt: No achievements, no successes, the place is only bigger and darker and worse."

Whether in agreement with his conclusion or not, his courage in stating such a controversial proposal should be admired. But it must also be acknowledged that Theroux comes to the issue not with a statistician's proofs but with an artist's eye for individual instance. Having spent so many years there as a volunteer, most of his arguments stem from the contrasts between Malawi then and Malawi now. These corrupt "joy-riding agents of virtue" are as well-spotted a phenomena as the innumerable poorly-managed and ineffectual charities themselves. However, Theroux takes a few limited personal experiences with such groups and develops them into a universal prescription for African renewal without taking into account any wider-reaching statistics and without investigating any of Africa's development success stories (Botswana, for example). Moreover, even within Malawi, he's quick to criticize, focussing on President Bakili Muluzi's ties with Muammar Ghaddafi rather than on the government's construction of new roads, its development of the tourism industry, or its anti-AIDS campaigns. (Of course, there are a few moments of hope in his assessments. An American diplomat in Uganda he interview says, "I'm paid to be optimistic... But if I weren't being paid for that I would despair of what Africans have made of their countries-the deforestation, the disorder, AIDS-God..." Theroux responds, "People I know-very smart people-want their children to stay here, not to emigrate. Speaking as a parent, that's a good sign.") In short, while his opinion is certainly a valid and well-delineated one, it is by no means authoritative.

Moreover, much more so than any claim of bias or any lack of statistical data, Theroux's argument is undermined by his own inconsistency of reference. If he, as a foreigner, is to make convincing such a widespread generalization about the utility of aid work across the entirety of Africa, as he attempts to do, then such a geographical grouping must at the very least appear a considered, natural and, most of all, un-imperial distinction. Unfortunately, Theroux's a tough author to pin down in this regard: although he shows extensive knowledge of local cultures and histories, he also lazily lumps people together in the most colonial of ways and using the most colonial of lexicons. He seems to make a very odd and counter-intuitive distinction between people he sees out of bus windows, whom he dignifies by presenting as members of specific cultures ("I glanced out the window at the mud huts of the Swazi people,...ruled over by the Ndlovukazi, their queen mum"), and the people he actually meets, who he typically labels "Africans." During a trip through Africa, one can only assume that most people encountered will be "Africans" (by which he seems to mean "people with darker skin than me"). Unfortunately, the term "African" occasionally acquires in his prose the vagueness common to most colonial narratives: at times he jumbles together everyone from Nubians to the Shona into this ridiculously artificial and nebulous category. It gets tiresome hearing everyone meticulously described as "African" ("I struck up a conversation with the young African woman in front of me..."; "three Africans were snoring when I got back to my compartment"). He describes with politically-correct condescension an eighteenth-century French map that has "among the descriptions of the natives, 'Peuples cruels' and 'Anthropophages' and 'Sauvages' and 'Hotentots'. The word 'CAFRERIE', printed big, covers a large blank area from the Tropic of Capricorn to the Equator." And yet for someone as well-travelled and supposedly aware of his postcolonial context as he is, his "African" becomes an equally unfortunate and useless modifier, meaningful only for its colonial overtones.

Equally offensive, and equally crippling for his African-aid plan, he maligns on infrequent occasion "Africans'" propensities for running a society (presumeably what they would have to do if the aid organizations did indeed pull out). "African cities did not even pretend to be anything except large slums. Once, each city had a distinct look... Such style gave the city atmosphere and an appearance of order in which hope was not wholly absent... Now, one city was much like another, because a slum is a slum. Improvisation had taken the place of planning." Again the generalisation and the condescension without hesitance and without his social-filters sending off alarm bells. It is apparently this genre of assessment that enables him to conclude in the final chapter: "And so I arrived home Africanized—robbed and diseased," thievery and illness apparently being integral to his "African experience".

Fortunately, his own hypocrisy saves Theroux from being entirely labelled the racist bastard we would otherwise suspect. The colonial nostalgia implied in the "African cities" passage is offset by an earlier comment where, after seeing a rusting water-collector in the middle of the bush, he states sagely that, "Long ago I might have said that such ruin represented failed hopes, but now I knew they were not African hopes." Less convincingly disclaimed is his no-doubt well-intentioned final paragraph, featuring a last line which taken out context is downright Victorian in its racism: "The most civilized [Africans] I met never used the word civilization. The wickedest believed themselves to be anointed leaders for life, and wouldn't let go of that delusion. The worst of them stole from foreign donors and their own people, like the lowest thieves, who rob the church's poor boxes. The kindest Africans had not changed at all and even after all these years the best of them are bare-assed." (Amazingly, this comes only a few passages after his claim that tidy synopsis of such a journey was impossible for him: "Whenever someone asked me to sum up my safari I just stammered and went mute, for it was less a trip than an experience of vanishing, a long period in my life spent alone improvising my way through the greenest continent.") As an assessment of his experiences, it could have proved so much more benign and respectful had he not succumbed to pat generalisation and, of course, had he not invoked the orientalizing and simply crass "bare-assed". And yet even this is a bit offset by his condemnation, apres-big-game safari, of his fellow travellers on it, who, he says, "sound[ed] like the rambling over-privileged fat-heads of a century earlier" (much as he sounds in his own concluding passage).

Overall, this is a frustrating book: while it has monumental problems, it is nonetheless a more than worthwhile read. Regardless of whether you agree with his political conclusions, generally Theroux's charisma, lyricism and considerable erudition render the book both an edifying comparative study of several cultures and an important overview of an remarkable region. Every so often, however, an off-colour comment undermines its graces. And yet despite Theroux's occasional but very significant offensiveness, the candour and humour and even the self-absorption of his prose makes for a very compelling read-and it leads one to speculate about how extraordinary Dark Star Safari could have been had he managed to suppress the dark side of his own consciousness.

Interesting article from M&G CEO Trevor Ncube. He's right that SA needs to work faster to improve education and facilitate the process of wealth redistribution. Right too that the way not to do this is by encouraging the emergence of crony capitalism and the idolisation of struggle leaders.

Something that's often missed when people compare SA to Zim is that wealth in SA takes a different form. Zimbabwean wealth is tied up in the land and thus when Mugabe needed to buy the support of the elite it was relatively easy for him to do so - simply sieze land and give it to his supporters. Wealth in SA is far more complex (as befits an industrialised country) and takes the form of relatively liquid capital assets which are harder to control. The ANC is unlikely to ever embark upon a programme of land seizure because it wouldn't give them access to the country's real wealth. Trying to seize the bulk of the country's real assets would be too difficult and would prompt swift and largescale capital flight anyway, thus being entirely counter-productive. One only needs to look to the developed countries where most of the land is owned by a relatively small percentage of the population (agri-business, large-scale farmers etc) to understand how the link between land and wealth breaks down as a country develops. What South Africans firstly need therefore is access to jobs, health care and education and only secondly to land. I understand that this is an emotive issue and I do favour redistribution to, in particular, tribal people's whose identity is associated with a particular part of the country. However that is very different to some of the more outrageous calls for redistribution that I've come across. The poor in South Africa are poor because they lack jobs and education not because they lack land.

This is obscene, no other word for it. Nujoma is fast becoming another Robert Mugabe and yet somehow, incredibly, he's managed to keep below the radar and avoid comment and condemnation. Ammending the constitution to run for a 3rd and possibly 4th time, squandering state resources to build a private mansion and generally showing disdain for the democratic processes of his own capital city, this is exactly the type of behaviour one would expect from a leader who fears no opposition. Let this be a warning to those who blithely assert that it is a good thing that the ANC so dominates SA politics.

Nice one chaps..

In case you haven't yet heard the ANC recently passed a bill that preventsSouth Africans living abroad from voting in the next general election. Coming in the wake of the govts failure to offer even token condemnation of Robert Mugabe's antics in Zimbabwe this strikes me as a further example of the cynical view that the ANC has begun to take of democracy.

There should be no doubt that the calculation was that the majority of South Africans living abroad were unlikely to be ANC supporters and thus disenfranchising them would be a useful tool in the race to retain the 2/3rds majority. I don't buy for a second the argument that the govt is constrained by a lack of resources. South Africa is a middle income country not a destitute one and a quick glance around shows that many other middle income countries (Poland and the Phillippines spring to mind) allow their expats to vote. Furthermore, nobody expects the govt to post ballot forms to every citizen living abroad, just to set up polling booths in the main embassies on the day of the election. I should think it unlikely that this would strain the national budget unduly.

Debates about resources miss the point however. The right to vote ought to be seen as an absolute right, which is to say that it should not be contingent upon anything, be it resource constraints or anything else. If the struggle for the universal franchise and the lives that were lost during that struggle are to have any meaning then the govt should feel hidebound to ensure that every eligible South African is able to vote. Our freedoms are a function of our ability to wield this one power and it is important therefore that we ensure that that power is not downgraded and that it does not become viewed as expendable or contingent. That way lies ruin...

For those who want to challenge their assumptions about HIV/AIDS in South Africa, here's an old-ish but interesting piece by Rian Malan, grandson of D F Malan, author of 'My Traitors Heart'

Malan's such a good writer that you can't help but nod your head when he starts to cast aspersions on the official AIDS statistics. Nevertheless, you probably wouldn't want to start supporting Thabo Mbeki's stance on AIDS on the basis of this article alone. Does give pause for thought though. Read it...

First entry on Southern Cross. Murray and I noticed a while ago that there was very little in the way of active, informed discussion about South African affairs. The local print media leaves much to be desired and the SABCs news service could be charitably described as being of dubious value. Blogging seems to us to be an obvious way around this problem by allowing us to discuss issues and disseminate ideas as they arise. This is something that the Americans have picked up on very quickly and, unsurprisingly, blogging is still dominated by them and most of the best blogs are American in origin and focus. Indeed our preliminary research (half an hour spent on google) failed to dig up a single SA affairs type blog. So this is our attempt to rectify this glaring ommission and to inject a much needed voice into the SA news realm, that of the informed sceptic.

Blogging works best when communities of like-minded bloggers have arisen who're able to link to and discuss each other. Until more South Africans cotton onto the revolution though, we're just going to have to soldier on alone. But let this stand as a call to arms, fellow South Africans, get to your computers and tell it like you see it.

At some point, we're going to insert a links section but until then have a look here, here, here and here for a few of our favourite blogs. Just to give you an idea of what's happening out in the blogosphere.