Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Russia is using food as a weapon of war again. Earlier this month, it torpedoed the Black Sea grain deal millions of Africans depend on to survive. That was the elephant in the room at this week’s Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. African leaders as pawns and props Frankly, the solidarity African leaders showed at the Russia-Africa summit in Petersburg this week… Read more.
South Africa is sending arms to Russia because the world is at war. For now, Ukraine is the battlefield. And, for now, Russians and Ukrainians are the combatants. But countries are taking sides. They are siding with Ukraine and the forces of democracy, or with Russia and the forces of autocracy. Some countries are hedging… Read more.
What Sudan Ceasefire? The Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly extended their ceasefire. The RSF announced a “humanitarian truce” for 72 hours beginning at midnight tonight. Except that the army marked that announcement by launching an offensive against the RSF. It reportedly wants to drive the RSF out of the capital, Khartoum.… Read more.
Sudan’s pro-democracy protesters celebrated the ouster of strongman Omar al-Bashir eight weeks ago. However, in doing so, they demonstrated the same naiveté as Egypt’s pro-democracy protesters when they celebrated the ouster of strongman Hosni Mubarak eight years ago. I published a commentary titled “Aping Egypt’s Ouster of Mubarak, Sudan Ousts Bashir” on April 17, 2019. In it, I admonished Sudan’s… Read more.
Corruption, incompetence, lawlessness, and the spectre of racial retribution are driving South Africa into the same dysfunctional shithole where Zimbabwe has been festering for the past 30 years. I have lamented this fateful symmetry in many commentaries, most notably in “South Africa ‘Betraying Its Values’,” May 13, 2011, “Zuma Doing to South Africa What Mugabe… Read more.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) gave President Jacob Zuma an ultimatum on Monday: resign by Wednesday or be impeached on Thursday (via vote of no-confidence). True to form, the hopelessly beleaguered Zuma strutted and fretted his case on TV until the eleventh hour and then resigned. No doubt he’s now hoping the sinecure he… Read more.
Africans selling Africans Like many people, you might think Europeans captured Africans to enslave them in the so-called New World. This, however, is one of history’s greatest misconceptions. After all, for centuries before Europeans set foot on the continent, Africans had been capturing and enslaving fellow Africans. Moreover, they were aping the customary practices of ancient civilizations… Read more.
For a little context, here is a relatively lengthy excerpt from “China Buying Up Political Dominion Over the Caribbean (Latin America, and Africa),” February 22, 2005, in which I presaged (almost 10 years ago) the spectre – not only of countries selling their sovereignty to China for easy cash, but of China placing increasingly mercantilist… Read more.
His family finally let him go…. Condolences to my friends and comrades in South Africa; although, it speaks volumes about what a beloved and influential man Nelson Mandela was that people all around the world are grieving his loss just as much. In fact, so inspiring was Mandela that, in his tribute just moments ago,… Read more.
Here is what I wrote six years ago after South Africa’s ruling ANC dumped Thabo Mbeki in favor of Jacob Zuma as party leader, thereby ensuring an ignominious end to Mbeki’s tenure as the country’s second democratically elected president: It’s an insult to Mbeki’s distinguished career of public service that he’s being so unceremoniously upstaged… Read more.
