In my first full year out of an academic environment, I tried to make sure that I kept up a steady diet of reading. My friend Brian, who graduated a year before I did, wrote on his blog earlier this year, that he felt that his reading patterns were relatively scattershot shortly after graduating, but were tending to become more focused around specific subject areas. So over the next few days, I’m going to try to think out loud about some of the books I’ve read this year, and see what kinds of trends may or may not be developing.

I find that people with a heavy interest in public policy and related fields tend to view fiction as a bit of a diversion. Literary public policy types may view fiction as a necessary diversion, but ultimately, still a diversion from the more concrete stringency of policy, political history, etc, that dominates bookstores in places like Washington, DC. Though I work in what may be most clearly seen as the “non-fiction world” — a mix of journalism, policy, and advocacy — I have tried to keep my personal reading grounded in a more intentionally balanced mix of fiction, non-fiction, and books centered around the inquiry into ideas. The one place I am sorely lacking is women’s voices. Almost time for some New Year’s resolutions on this score.

South African fiction

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that this was a year in which I moved to South Africa, much of my reading in all three areas was focused on this general area of the world. I read a collection of short stories and articles from Drum magazine in the 1950s. Drum symbolized a period of intellectual and artistic vibrancy in the Sophiatown neighborhood in Johannesburg, and the stories in The Drum Decade, edited by Michael Chapman, get at a lot of the grit, life and music, of that place and time, held by many to have been a golden age of black life in the city.

Es’kia Mphahlele wrote for Drum and went on to a storied career as an educator and writer in South Africa, in exile, and upon his return home towards the end of his life. Down 2nd Avenue gets at a lot of the troubles of impermanence and harshness of growing up as a young black man in the urban centers of present-day Gauteng province. Mphahlele’s sympathetic eye for his own emotions and those of others is a good lesson for writers and readers anywhere. His description of his decision to go into exile gets at the dilemmas faced by many South African writers and artists especially during the 1950s and 1960s. I think this may be a set work in most South African schools, but if you’re in a new place, sometimes you have to start with the basics!

Niq Mhlongo’s Dog Eat Dog was a fun, insightful look into the mind of a student at Wits in Braamfontein, the neighborhood just north of the Johannesburg city center that is also home to my office. My impression is that some of the discussions about race relations in the immediate aftermath of Nelson Mandela’s elections have become more complicated and perhaps not such an obsession fifteen years later. On the other hand, universities in South Africa still have a lot of old white men (and women) running the show. I can imagine the opening seen between Dingz — the main protagonist — and a stodgy white lady in the university bursary office to be just as likely today.

Mandla Langa’s The Lost Colours Of The Chameleon is an unabashedly political novel. But it comes at the psyche of dictatorship, corruption, and the crumbling of a family dynasty from a highly personal level. More insightful than the pop-psychoanalysis of a actual, non-fictional leader like Thabo Mbeki that Mark Gevisser did in his A Dream Deferred last year (published in the USA in 2009 as A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki And The Future Of The South African Dream). And yes, I did read the full version — none of this “abridged” nonsense!

Elsewhere in Africa

Dambudzo Marechera’s Black Sunlight was republished this year. The Zimbabwean “enfant terrible of African literature” lived up to such a billing. The novel really gets inside the madness of an unnamed city under seige. Avoids being hyper-politicized with a spoonful of sexual desire on the part of the narrator.

I didn’t know until recently that Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene also published books during his prolific life. I recently finished a collection of two novellas, White Genesis and The Money Order (no link — I bought it used and I think it is out of print). The first is about the societal effects of polygamy and male dominance in traditional Senegalese society, the second about the intersection of inept, low-level bureaucracy, migration, and urban poverty in Dakar.

United States

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee is not really fiction, but it is so experimental in terms of form that I think it is alright to include it here. I read this as part of a long-term syllabus I am crafting for myself for writing about poverty. Perhaps we can excuse this as being of its time, but I don’t think a writer from a position of privilege need ever spend so much time emoting about his own guilt if he aims to really engage with the circumstances of his subject. Crass sympathy (“oh, poor them”) is not a good substitute for truly engaged empathy. Still, this was well worth reading and I’m happy I didn’t do it as part of a college course, as many American students do. It demands a more unconventional kind of reading for which there is rarely time in college.

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian or Evening Redness In The West was by far the bloodiest, most violent book that I have ever read. I will always be down with McCarthy’s totally morbid vision of human nature and the particularities of how that plays out in the American context.

Outsider Europe

I read a couple of Russians this year basically on a whim and my feeling that I have a natural affinity for 19th century Russian literature, even though I have not read so much of it. A friend gave me The Brute and Other Farces by Anton Chekhov just before I left for South Africa in March. A good read for a year of farces encountered both personally and throughout the world.

Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls has a lot of farcical aspects to it as well. A crazy traveling entrepreneur laughs in the face of landowners throughout the Russian countryside. Good stuff.

Finally, this would have been a great year in fiction reading if only because my favorite writer of all time, Orhan Pamuk, finally came out with his new masterpiece, The Museum Of Innocence. An incredibly obsessive character portrait of a self-described “anthropologist” of his own life. Turns out this means that the main character, Kemal, constantly feeds his obsession for his almost-there love, Fusun, and the city where he suffers, hates, and loves: Istanbul. Also, before I left the United States, I picked up Pamuk’s collection of essays, Other Colors. It was great to read him find fragments of his city, his book collection, and his own novels.

The Tripartite Alliance.

Let me make it clear that I hold no brief for the current ANCYL or its President. At the same time I also have no truck with the shenanigans of the unholy and unprincipled tripartite alliance which is characterized by parasitism and opportunism. But might I remind Blade Nzimande and Gwede Mantashe that the ANCYL is a formation of the ANC not an alliance partner that is parasitically and opportunistically clinging on to the ANC. The SACP has been riding on the coat tails of the ANC for far too long and it was about time that it should go it alone rather than being so grumpy and grouchy.

Mantashe told ANCYL President that he (Mantashe) wasn’t at the SACP special congress for the ANC. He said, “This is an SACP congress…” That is a typical problem of dual membership. Mantashe is Secretary General of the ANC. However he attends an SACP congress not as a member of the ANC, and yet he has the gall and temerity to tell SACP delegates at that SACP special national conference “to swell the ranks of the ANC” in order, as Nzimande unashamedly put it, “to reflect its character and strength as it seeks to influence decisions (read policies) in both the ANC and government”. This is blatantly parasitic and opportunistic. Why do they want to swell the ranks of the ANC and reflect their character and strength in the ANC in order to influence decisions in both the ANC and government rather than swelling the ranks of the SACP?

They are hangers-on and they have persistently and consistently denied their shameful relationship with the ANC. They have now inadvertently admitted that indeed they are parasites and opportunists. When the ANC has its gatherings, Mantashe curries favour with the ANC and gives the SACP a dressing down wearing an ANC hat. He is a chameleon like all those with dual memberships. These parasites and opportunists are still in their Stalinist mould because they have changed the SACP constitution to allow Nzimande to hold on to the position of Secretary General of the SACP as well as his cabinet post. The secretary generalship of the SACP is a full time position which means Nzimande should have relinquished at the time he accepted to become Minister of Higher Education.

The SACP leadership changes the rules to suit its power mongering. This is undemocratic. They have succeeded in realizing this undemocratic manoevre because the followers of the SACP are suckers. A character like Nzimande criticized those who are “more brazenly Africanist but without a coherent ideological outlook”. But does the SACP have a coherent ideological outlook? What is left of its ideology is just garbled and muddled mishmash.

Africanism is found enveloped in enigmas that seem impenetrable and was revealed to us by great African thinkers some of whom warned about the dangers members of the Communist Party posed to the African people in many ways. The SACP is rabidly anti Africanism and continues to undermine the nationalist character of our struggle. We are Africans and not workers. We waged our struggle as Africans but not as workers. In the early 1920’s Marcus Garvey arguing with members of the Communist Party of the United States said, “we are Africans first, last and always”. He also accused them of regarding Africans as expendable.

In January 1959 Robert Sobukwe also told some communist-influenced members of the ANC that our struggle was not a workers or a class struggle but that it was a national struggle because we were not oppressed as workers or as a class but as an African nation. Unfortunately, the ANC had already bought into the ideological bankruptcy and confusion of the SACP in the mid 1950’s which it is still hanging on to like a drowning man clutching at straws.

Former President Thabo Mbeki tried to rescue them from ideological bankruptcy but they chucked him out in the most despicable way being assisted by the same ANCYL President who is now their target. The ANCYL must admit that the chickens have now come home to roost and that the PAC had always been correct about the analysis of our struggle for liberation and the ulterior motives of the SACP.

By Sam Ditshego

The Truth About AIDS

The Jacob Zuma ANC-led government’s “new approach to HIV and AIDS” represents the height of hypocrisy coupled with posturing and grand standing. Zuma did it for money because already he has received pledges of financial support from some western quarters. Zuma and his ruling party colleagues are on the take.

It was reported towards the end of September 2009 that President Jacob Zuma criticized former President Thabo Mbeki in a CNN television interview saying Mbeki acted outside government and party directives on HIV and AIDS. Zuma was part of the Mbeki government that came up with the policies his administration is now criticizing and he was also heading the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) during the reign of Mbeki. The truth is that ANC policies on HIV/AIDS have failed.

Those who are familiar with the history of the science of HIV and AIDS will know that the definition of the disease and causative agent(s) changed about twice. The explanation of the origin of the disease was also ridiculous and scientifically untenable.

There is also the harping on the Harvard School of Public Health’s “damning report that revealed that 330, 000 lives were lost because of Mbeki’s and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s failure to provide anti-retroviral drugs between 2000 and 2005″. This is thumb-sucking bull crap with no shred of evidence supporting the authenticity of such a claim. For example, there is not a single death certificate in this country stating unequivocally that so and so died of AIDS. Proof will also be required confirming that the pharmacological action of those anti-retrovirals delay the onset of the disease. Retroviruses replicate in the cells of the host and may be difficult to control. They can be manipulated through genetic engineering or molecular biology. Vaccines are complety out.

The pharmaceutical companies that manufactured the deadly AZT are the same ones manufacturing the in-vogue anti-retrovirals. Why didn’t they get it right from the beginning? If they didn’t why should we expect them to succeed this time around? The head of Harvard School of Public Health during the time AIDS made headlines, Dr Myron Essex once said AIDS spread throughout the world because someone in the Congo was bitten on the buttocks by a monkey and infected the whole world. Dr Essex was coming with monkey business and we should not be intimidated by the mere mention of the Harvard School of Public Health because it could also be coming with monkey business.

Some organizations have been calling on Mbeki to apologize or be charged with genocide. Apologize for what? Mbeki is not a buffoon…he will not apologize. On genocide, there are no crazy law makers out there who would listen to such a baseless case which rests on unfounded allegations.

By Sam Ditshego

World AIDS Day gets a boost with encouraging news out of South Africa

A day before World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, researchers and employees of the Hutchinson Center gathered to commemorate the annual event. We may be better known as a cancer research center, but we’re also deeply immersed in HIV/AIDS research.

And because our researchers lead the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, a worldwide effort to find an effective and safe vaccine against this disease, the day carries special significance. It remains, of course, a somber commemoration, but certainly not as somber as it would have been in past years. Today, researchers around the world are cautiously optimistic that we’re on the right track to developing an effective HIV vaccine—more so after a vaccine trial in Thailand earlier this year appeared to reduce the acquisition of HIV by about 30 percent.

Dr. Larry Corey

“While these results are not at the level we will need to effectively control the AIDS pandemic, it is an indication that scientists will reach the goal of developing an effective HIV vaccine,” said Dr. Larry Corey, senior vice president and co-director of the Hutchinson Center’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute and principal investigator with the Vaccine Trials Network. “There are several other vaccine candidates in the research pipeline” and the encouraging results in Thailand “will provide renewed enthusiasm for human clinical trials, as well as additional HIV vaccine discovery,” he said.

Awareness of the disease has grown, along with a greater sensitivity for people suffering from HIV/AIDS. That’s why there was cause for celebration this week as well, after South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma outlined a new AIDS policy for his nation—which has more people with HIV than any other country in the world.

Former President Thabo Mbeki openly questioned whether HIV caused AIDS during his nearly 10 years in power. He also opposed the use of antiretroviral drugs. A Harvard study, cited by The New York Times in an article this week, determined that the delay by “Mbeki’s government in using antiretroviral drugs to prevent women from infecting their newborns earlier this decade led to the deaths of 35,000 babies, and that 330,000 people died prematurely for lack of treatment.”

“We have no choice but to deploy every effort, mobilize every resource and utilize every skill our nation possesses” against AIDS, Zuma told his nation. Now it’s up to South Africans to hold him to that promise.

By Ignacio Lobos
Quest Editor

It’s World AIDS Day. Watch this vid:

Iron Man 2:


News

• Barack will make an address tonight on Afghanistan, with preliminary reports suggesting a rapid deployment of an additional 30-35,000 troops.
• The proposed Comcast-NBC merger would be the largest media merger in recent history.
• South Africa vows to treat all HIV-positive babies (which is a big change of direction post-Mbeki).

Health care

• Latino voters see health care as the overwhelming priority.

Green

• The folks over at Treehugger debunk the global-warming-conspiracy conspiracy and critique the whole Climategate fallacy.

Finance reform

• The House is moving forward on financial regulation reform; the Senate is sluggish … very sluggish.

Miscellaneous

• My good friend Ziya looks at the different perceptions of beauty.
• Is Lasik worth thousands of dollars?

The ANC seems obsessed with the Mao quote about a letting a hundred flowers blossom. Whenever there is a discussion about the nature of public debate, you can rest assured someone from the ruling party will evoke it. But does it know the terrible history that defines that particular statement? Or is it just ignorant? This edition of The Real ANC Today attempts to put that quote into its proper context and, in turn, the ANC’s commitment to meaningful debate.

Related Stories:

• The Ghost between the Lines
• A Numbing of the Public Mind
• Strengthening South Africa’s Public Debate

THE REAL ANC TODAY
Volume 2; Issue 11

Misunderstanding Mao

By: Gareth van Onselen

For President Thabo Mbeki his weekly newsletter in ANC Today served a very particular purpose: a platform from which he could exact revenge on those elements of society he deemed to stand in opposition to himself and the African National Congress.

One of the more prominent of these attacks was on Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in 2004. The Archbishop had suggested the President had surrounded himself with yes-men and had done little to alleviate the plight of the poor, concentrating his efforts, rather, on enriching a small, black elite. As is his want, the President’s response was vengeful and personal.

It is not my purpose here to interrogate the merits of that debate, only to highlight one significant excerpt from the President’s response. He wrote:

“I have made this clear in the past that I, for one, will join the public debate on any matter, exercising the same right that any other South African has, to speak out on matters of concern to the nation. In this regard, I support the call once made in China – let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend!”

It was a reference to the statement made by Chairman Mao Zedong, the former leader of Communist China, and was evoked by Mbeki to suggest – as Mao suggested – that all debate should be encouraged and contending ideas allowed to compete.

History has ruled fairly categorically on the extent to which President Mbeki was really committed to a competition of ideas, but that particular quote seems to live on in the ANC’s daily communication and is routinely evoked by those in the alliance who would suggest that debate be encouraged and fostered.

Last Friday, ANC National Executive Member (and Minister of Police) Nathi Mthethewa opened an article penned for ANC Today with the following statement:

“The advent of democracy has given birth to free and unhindered national dialogue on virtually all issues. There are no holy cows! As Mao once said, ‘letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress.’”

He was followed this week by Kimani Ndungu, a member of the SACP and ANC, writing for the SACP online journal Umsebenzi (25 November), in which he stated, in support of the much-maligned Jeremy Cronin:

“Before throwing his next insult, cde Malema may want to pose for a moment and reflect on Mao Tse Tung’s injunction to his party comrades in 1956 that ‘let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend’.”

A week earlier (18 November), in an article in the Sowetan, the Deputy Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula wrote:

“We welcome a national dialogue on these measures and every South African must be part of this public discourse. Borrowing from the first chairperson of the Communist Party of China, Mao Tse-Tung, we say: ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend.’”

How encouraging it is to see the ruling party so committed to public debate; at least ostensibly.

History, however, demands a different interpretation of that commitment, certainly if Mao’s quote is anything to go by.

A review of facts suggests the use of that particular statement is deeply disingenuous; either that or those who would use it are the victims of a profound historical ignorance.

Mao Zedong was a brutal and ruthless dictator who relentlessly persecuted, punished and murdered millions of innocent people; and particularly those he considered to be critical of him personally or the Communist Party’s cause more generally.

Clive James, in his book Cultural Amnesia, puts it like this:

“The full evil of Mao Zedong (1893-1976) is continually being rediscovered, because it is continually being forgotten. In 2005 it was rediscovered all over again when Jung Chang, previously the author of Wild Swans, the book that blew the gaff on the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, brought out, together with her husband, an account of Mao’s career that pitched the body count of innocent civilians where it belonged, far beyond the total achieved by Hitler and Stalin put together.”

Karl Shaw, in his book Power Mad: A Book of Deranged Dictators (which I would recommend for anyone interested in a fuller picture of Mao’s various atrocities) estimates that Mao was responsible for between 14 – 20 million deaths, “from starvation during the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and tens of thousands killed and millions of lives ruined during the ‘Cultural Revolution’”.

One might think that fact alone enough to discredit his contribution on the virtues of democratic debate. Not so the ANC.

But the problem is more acute than that. The hundred flowers quote, so glowingly referred to by various members of the alliance, was the very thing Mao used to identify those people he feared most – broadly speaking, anyone with an education – so that he might brutally pursue them.

For Mao intellectuals were a threat, and the hundred flowers speech a means of targeting them and ending their influence on society.

In her brief and yet fairly comprehensive biography of Mao, Delia Davin describes the events surrounding the hundred flowers speech as follows:

“In an extraordinary about-turn, from the spring of 1956 Mao and some other Party leaders began to advocate a freer intellectual climate. Using the slogan ‘let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools contend’, they urged that academic debate should be allowed to take place without undue political interference and that the Party and officials should submit to public criticism.”

Later, she continues:

“The response [to the hundred flowers statement] began and by the early summer of 1957 some were attacking the Party and its role in fundamental ways. Under mounting pressure from colleagues, and perhaps disconcerted by the strength of the resentment he had unleashed, Mao warned against ‘excesses’. Soon afterwards a new campaign of repression was launched. Almost half a million intellectuals were condemned as ‘rightists’ and punished with various degrees of severity.”

That description is fairly objective; it even suggests an authentic attempt to encourage debate when the statement was first made. But as more and more evidence on the way in which Mao behaved comes to light, even that aside now seems to carry little weight.

In his book Mao: The Unknown Story, Jon Haliday argues for a far more ominous agenda:

“On 27 February 1957, Mao delivered a four-hour speech to rubber-stamp Supreme Council announcing that he was inviting criticisms of the Communist Party. The Party, he said, needed to be accountable and ‘under supervision’. He sounded reasonable, criticising Stalin for his ‘excessive’ purges, and giving the impression there were going to be no more of these in China. In this context, he cited an adage, ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom’. Few guessed that was setting a trap, and that he was inviting people to speak out so that he could use what they said as an excuse to victimise them, Mao’s targets were intellectuals and the educated, the people most likely to speak up.”

That particular interpretation – that the hundred flowers speech was a deliberate ploy – is supported by Mao’s own opinion on the subject. He is quoted as saying that the statement was designed to persuade the “poisonous weeds” – his own euphemism for intellectuals – to reveal themselves. Haliday quotes Mao as saying how he was “casting a long line to bait big fish” with the intention of catching “the snakes”, by enticing them out of their lairs.

Clive James is more sardonic on the matter:

“The pretty rubric looks so harmless even today, now that we have some idea of what it cost. Halfway between a poem and a slogan, it is a small thought that would fit on a big T-shirt. It doesn’t even sound wrong. Mao designed it to sound right. For the trick to work, millions of people had to believe the words meant what they said, even though the Party, within long memory, had never rewarded a contentious voice with anything except torture and death. Anyway, the suckers fell for it. The flowers bloomed, the schools of thought contended, and Mao’s executioners went to work.”

What is beyond contention are the consequences, whether part of an initial grand scheme to identify and brutalise those that oppose him, or not, that is exactly what happened.

Survivors of the assault, in a petition to the Communist Party in 2005, estimate that over 550 000 people identified as a consequence of the hundred flowers campaign were humiliated, imprisoned, tortured, or killed.

Which brings us back to the various ways in which that statement is used in South Africa today – to cite that particular quote as representative of the suggestion that public debate be encouraged demonstrates a profound ignorance of breathtaking proportions. Mao’s call represents the very antithesis of any call for public debate, its encouragement or its protection; in fact, it represents a guise for a far more sinister agenda.

Its use by the ANC is embarrassing.

If ignorance is not the ruling party’s excuse in evoking Mao, the alternative is fairly chilling; but, given its penchant for threatening violence against those that would oppose it, not unrealistic.

Back in 2004, in response to Mbeki (whom one cannot accuse of ignorance), former DA leader Tony Leader said, “You are fond, Honourable President, of quoting the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, who said: “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend”. But the debate he launched was soon shut down by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.”

He continued:

“The real turning point in modern Chinese history was the speech by Deng Xiaopeng at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1978. Deng said: ‘Black cat or white cat, as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.’ The lesson for South Africa is that we should care less about the colour of the person who provides a service and more about the quality of the service that he or she provides”.

That sentiment remains the biggest challenge for the public debate in South Africa today and it applies particularly to the ruling party, which routinely demonstrates an inability to separate its own prejudices from the subject at hand.

That problem is often exacerbated by the superficial nature of any argument it puts forward. Indeed, its violent and, often, hate-filled rhetoric is enough in and of itself to dissuade anyone from the effort of a real or meaningful exchange; but it is equally true that the actual substance of any piece of communication is often so poorly thought through, so weak and incoherent that, even if one was able to sum up the energy to rise above that vengeful tone, the words themselves amount to nothing more than an intellectual black hole.

Partial results of Thabo Mbeki’s beetroot response to the South African AIDS epidemic are out. Life expectancy in South Africa declined between 1990-2007 (from 62 to 50). It is expected to decline even further over the next few years. Read more about this here.

It is worth noting that the new South African administration took an about-turn from Mbeki’s bizarre AIDS policy, as was articulated by his health minister. The South African Ministry of Health has on its website an HIV and AIDS and STI strategic plan designed to tackle the HIV problem. Over 5 million South Africans, out of a total population of 49.3 million, are infected.

PERSPECTIVE
The dust has finally settled and the curtain closed. The African National Congress (ANC)emerged victors of the 2009 presidential and parliamentary elections. Their landslide victory comfortably secures them an upper hand in driving the affairs of South Africa and its infant democracy.
However, the ANC still faces major challenges as it desperately fights to keep the legacy of one of the world’s most respected statesmen, Nelson Mandela. It is a legacy that rescued South Africa’s black population from the ruthless and cruel hands of apartheid. Yet, not even a fresh faced election victory masks the challenges still facing this government.
Zuma’s government has a huge task in gaining the confidence of an electorate which ushered them into power. His government still has a lot to achieve and prove, in order to convince its people at the grassroots especially those living in abject poverty,  that his cabinet are worth their vote and are committed to bringing positive change and alleviating poverty in their communities.
In the past decade South Africa has faced a serious political meltdown threatening the maturity of its infant democracy.
History remembers well the sacking of then deputy president Jacob Zuma by former president Thabo Mbeki. At a high profile press conference, Mbeki disclosed that allegations of corruption against Zuma were the motivation behind his decision to remove Zuma from office.
The decision by Thabo Mbeki to fire Jacob Zuma as his deputy president enraged the ANC, which would later force Mbeki to vacate his presidency. Mbeki was accused of being on a mission to block all avenues that would see Zuma the next president of South Africa.
With integrity and dignity, a sombre Mbeki obliged.
History also remembers vividly why in the past decade, South Africa’s political chores have been widely criticized and put under scrutiny by Africa and the rest of the world. Former president Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy towards the Zimbabwe crisis was a much talked about issue that contributed to both South Africa and Zimbabwe’s political woes. Mbeki’s approach in dealing with Zimbabwe’s political crisis was widely condemned and as such, was seen by political scholars as a serious weakness on Mbeki’s ability to resolve conflicts. Thabo Mbheki’s quiet diplomacy wreaked havoc on Zimbabwe and has negatively impacted on South Africa’s political image. In a desperate move to resolve Zimbabwe’s political problems, deep seated members in the ANC wanted an entirely different approach to the Zimbabwe crisis as opposed to Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy. Frustrated ANC members wanted Mbeki to openly condemn Robert Mugabe’s land reforms which has culminated in the mass murderers of white farmers and MDC cadres. The ANC also wanted Thabo Mbheki to condemn Mugabe’s habit of clinging to power. In the same breath, Africa and the rest of the world accused Mugabe of rigging that country’s elections, which would have seen Morgan Tsvangirai become Zimbabwe’s first democratically elected president, since Robert Mugabe’s regime.
Thabo Mbeki’s failure to resolve conflicts affecting SADC regions especially Zimbabwe’s crisis was seen by many especially the United States and European union as a major blow to Africa’s political and economic development. He failed miserably and his silent approach only contributed to that country’s tragic political and economic demise. Last month, Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted Zimbabwe’s power sharing deal with Robert Mugabe but has since called off his boycott and has now demanded Robert Mugabe implement the agreements on the pertinent issues which that country is concerned about. To date, the political situation in Zimbabwe is still unripe with no talk bearing fruit.  Zimbabwe is yet to see positive results of a power sharing government.
Zimbabwe, a country once known as the bread basket of Africa has the highest inflation rates and now lies in the shadows of its former glory; isolated, plagued by starvation and violence, and currently sits on economic sanctions slapped on its government by international institutions.
The tragic events of  that country’s political and economic events have seen an influx of Zimbabwean refugees cross into South Africa in order to escape political unrest and starvation in their own country. Everyday,  some hundreds of Zimbabweans brave the storms to seek refuge in South Africa. Of these immigrants, a large 80% are illegal immigrants who resort to crimes ranging from white collar crimes to violent crimes in order to survive the streets of South Africa, especially Johannesburg. Whilst it is a fact that most of these crimes are partly committed by indigenous south Africans, illegal immigrants from all over Africa seeking a better life in South Africa yet end up finding themselves on the streets of South Africa are more likely to commit crimes on a regular basis in order to survive the harsh realities of life on the streets.
There has been a disturbing increase in crime in recent months with banks being targeted. Crimes committed regularly include rape,  senseless murders, house robberies, car thefts, car hijackings, with the introduction of ATM bombings in 2008 being the latest crime fashion.
South African police are been full on their hands and a record high of police lives have been lost in the line of duty in their quest to combat these crimes.
Add xenophobia attacks to the list and you know Zuma’s government faces major challenges in winning back the confidence of its electorate. In 2008, South Africa experienced one of the worst crimes committed by Africans against each other in xenophobic attacks. Hundreds of foreigners were viciously attacked a year ago by indigenous South Africans who accused foreign Africans especially Zimbabweans of taking what is left of their economy. Lack of government’s failure to deliver on its promises fuelled anger amongst South Africans living in squalor, hence the underlying motivation behind the xenophobia attacks. South Africans living in abject poverty have since taken to the streets to protest against government’s failure to deliver on its promises. In recent weeks, Xenophobia has reared its ugly head again in De Doorns in the western cape forcing some 2,400 African foreign immigrants to vacate their homes and failing to report for work.
Despair and pent up anger amongst indigenous South Africans living in deplorable conditions in shanty compounds has reached fever pitch as they helplessly watch their foreign counterparts rise up to economic challenges.
However, in spite of all these challenges, President Jacob Zuma insists that job creation, crime reduction and alleviating poverty is top of the agenda on his list, but people are increasingly getting frustrated and are taking to the streets in mass protests in an attempt to have their voices heard, and their patience is fast running out.
The United States and European union have urged Zuma to speed up change in Zimbabwe so that there is a change of leadership in that country. They have openly condemned Mugabe’s constitution and land reforms and continue to lash out at Mugabe for bringing that country to its tragic fall and subjecting his people to starvation and violence.
With corruption and a tendency of practicing half baked democracies being the norm in most African countries,  the United States and European union demand governments adhere to its mandate. It warns African governments and other undemocratic governments around the world to rid themselves of corruption and practice transparency in order to qualify for funding which could save their economies.

Hard pressing challenges are looming over the ANC’s shoulders and the world is now watching Zuma closely more than ever before with keen interest and anticipation, to see how his government rises to these challenges-By Sheria Mwangala, Freelance journalist,  Johannesburg South Africa.

The Truth About AIDS

The object of World Planners is control – absolute control. They want to control population growth. Their control of population is in their ability to control the thoughts and behaviour of the masses. Global 2000 is the organisation to implement the depopulation plan. So they engineered disease-causiog agents such as HIV to achieve their objective. That is why in 1992 or 1993 I refused to give my eldest son’s school Central Junior Secondary School in Victoria, Canada permission to vaccinate my elder son against meningitis. He is healthy and a graduate of Wits.

In 1995 upon my return from exile I started the ball rolling with the AIDS debate at the Sowetan newspaper when Mr Sydney Matlhaku was still in charge of the letters section before former President Thabo Mbeki could grapple with the AIDS issue for which he was so unfairly castigated. Let us turn back the hands of time to the late 1970’s when homosexuals in the United States of America contracted a new disease that is associated with green monkeys and later with Haitians.

This disease changed names about three times. There was a time when it was called Gay Plague in the US media. The gay community fought against such stigmatization and it was then associated with Haitians and finally with the African continent. For those who don’t know, Haitians are of African origin. This disease finally came to be known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Its original American name is Human T-Lymphotropic Virus type III (HTLV-III) and its original French name is Lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV). The disease that broke out in the US among homosexuals who were inoculated with the Hepatitis B vaccine had symptoms similar to those of AIDS.

Homosexuals in the US were vaccinated with the Hepatitis B vaccine before the outbreak of a disease that with the same symptoms as AIDS. In Africa, Haiti and Brazil there were smallpox vaccination campaigns by the World Health Organisation in the late 1960’s which resulted in the outbreak of AIDS. Some scientists and medical practitioners such as Drs Robert Strecker, William Campbell Douglass and Eva Snead made interesting findings about the correlation between the outbreak of diseases such as polio, encephalytis and AIDS with vaccination campaigns (Read the front page article of the London Times of 11 May 1987).

Dr Douglass wrote a report titled “WHO Murdered Africa” in 1987 in which he accused the World Health Organisation of having spread the AIDS disease in Africa through inoculation.  W.H.O Murdered Africa is a declarative statement but not a question. Dr Douglass quotes an article in the WHO bulletin, Vol 47, p259, 1972 calling on scientists to work with deadly retroviruses to attempt to make a hybrid virus that would be deadly to humans. It read, “An attempt should be made to see if viruses can in fact exert selective effect on immune function. The possibility should be looked into that the immune response to viruses itself may be impaired of the infecting virus damaging, more or less selectively, the cell responding to the virus”. Doesn’t that sound like AIDS? In plain English WHO is saying let’s cook up a virus that selectively destroys the T-cell system of man, an acquired immune deficiency.

In the Strecker Memorandum, Dr Strecker has said that HIV is a combination of the bovine leukemia virus of cows and visna virus of sheep. These viruses are not reactive to human beings but can be adapted to infect humans. They are retro-viruses, meaning that they can change the genetic composition of cells that they enter. Dr Snead says all vaccines are totally unsafe. The flu vaccine itself is prepared on chicken embryo, an unborn chicken, which means that people who are allergic to these products like egg and chicken can become ill.

On the other hand, the injection of these proteins into other humans will render them, in a large percentage, allergic to chicken and egg which means that people who were not allergic before will now become allergic. The other problem is that all viral vaccines contain not only the particular virus but they also contain traces of leukemia virus, cancer-producing viruses etc. These are not completely removable, they exist in the chicken from which these eggs are taken and although they claim that they are 98% purified, 2% of several billion viruses is still an awful lot of cancer and leukemia. Dr Snead also pointed out that to separate cells, a pork product may have to be used which is made from raw pork stomach. It is an enzyme that separates the cells called pork trypsin and a lot of people who would not ingest or take pork products for religious or other reasons are seduced without knowing it into violating their convictions. That is why it is not wise to take influenza vaccines.

According to Dr Snead there is no science, credible or otherwise, that can test for something that hasn’t happened. You can’t test, compared to what? If they deliberately put a variety of viruses in the public then they will say we were right, virus A or virus B will be endemic this year. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy because they created that particular problem and not only that but the other thing is that some years back some people who had a problem of the nervous system and encephalitis had been exposed to the flu virus. Dr Snead has written an interesting book on the same subject titled “Some call it Aids I call it Murder”. Dr Leonard Horowitz also says that there are risks associated with immunization. The chances of a serious adverse reaction to the diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) vaccine were 1 in 1750, while the chances of a child so vaccinated dying from pertussis each year were 1 in several million. (Pertussis is an infectious disease due to Bordetella pertussis and characterized by coryza, bronchitis, and a typical explosive cough ending in growing or whooping inspiration).

Dr Horowitz learned of a child who had been permanently disabled by a vaccine, so he investigated. According to his report, Health authorities credit vaccines for disease declines, and assure us of their safety and effectiveness. Yet these assumptions are directly contradicted by government statistics, medical studies, Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control reports and reputable research scientists from around the world. In fact, infectious diseases declined steadily for decades prior to vaccinations. US doctors report thousands of serious vaccine reactions each year including hundreds of deaths and permanent disabilities, fully vaccinated populations have experienced epidemics, and researchers attribute dozens of chronic immunological and neurological conditions to mass immunization programmes.

There are hundreds of published medical studies documenting vaccine failure and adverse effects, and dozens of books written by doctors, researchers, and independent investigators that reveal serious flaws in immunization theory and practice. Most pediatricians and parents are completely unaware of these findings. However, this has begun to change in recent years, as a growing number of parents and health care providers around the world are becoming aware of the problems and starting to question the use of widespread mandatory vaccines.

Dr Horowitz is not telling anyone whether or not to vaccinate, but rather, with the utmost urgency, to point out some very good reasons why everyone should examine the facts before deciding whether or not to submit to the procedure. As a parent he says he was shocked to discover the absence of a legal mandate or professional ethic requiring pediatricians to be fully informed, and to see first-hand the prevalence of physicians who are applying practices based on incomplete – and in some cases, outright misinformation. His report contains sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation by all concerned. He also says that most pediatricians have staked their identities and reputations on the presumed safety and effectiveness of vaccines, and thus have difficulty acknowledging evidence to the contrary. The misconceptions about this subject have deep roots. In this regard Dr Horowitz has written a book titled “Emerging Viruses: Aids and Ebola”.

By Sam Ditshego

On the even of South Africa’s second democratic election in 1999 as Nelson Mandela made way for Thabo Mbeki, both foreign and South African media outlets could not contain themselves with the “What happens After Mandela?” questions.

That same nonsense is being peddled on the front page of The New York Times in a piece that does not tell us much. The piece is actually an excuse to promote a new book about Mandela’s time in prison (for which I will honor Mandela forever).   But this should have been in the Arts section instead of being offered as news analysis.

[BTW, the premise of these "After Mandela?" newspaper articles, magazine pieces or TV inserts pretend that nothing has happened in South Africa since 1999 or they spent their time lamenting some perfect period between 1994-1999. The assumption at the time was also that Mandela would depart from the Presidency, South Africa would fall apart. Like that happened. (It also made assumptions about the political and economic stability of the Mandela era as well as some of Mandela's more wrong-headed policies-like his failure to tackle AIDS, the over-emphasis on "reconciliation" or the wrong-headed economic policies  which Mbeki merely perfected. It also pretends that Mandela can be separated from the current ANC leadership, which he endorses. But I'll stop here.]

Thabo Mbeki, the former South African President who is an avowed AIDS denialist, must be happy with the latest rant of Rush Limbaugh, the nutty rightwing radio talk show host (he who is beloved by US Republicans and the media networks for whom he is a money spinner).

Limbaugh, early today, in an attempt to get at the Obama Administration for declaring swine flu a national emergency, went on a riff about how the government’s warnings about swine flu are similar to the “hype” about the extent of the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Anyway, Limbaugh first claimed AIDS infections in Africa are exaggerated and then said AIDS does not exist. Like he is a medical scientist or a researcher of pandemics.

I know this sounds crazy. But remember until not so long ago (that is 2008) this kind of nonsense was considered informed opinion among some members of South Africa’s Cabinet as well as some of its ruling party elites. (There is now a change.)

Via Gawker.

I was dreading yesterday’s mini-budget.

Firstly the objective conditions were against us. It was clear that the Great Recession was going to squeeze revenue – and therefore the space available for the new Minister of Finance to operate in. As it turns out, lower revenue and higher than expected expenditure has pushed the estimated deficit on the consolidated budget to R184bn or 7.6% of GDP.

Now that is a significant shortfall, but not bigger – and in some cases a lot smaller – than governments around the world are operating on in these difficult times.

Secondly the long triumphalist Polokwane after-party  had led me to miscalculate. It had begun to feel as if every milestone we reached was another opportunity to celebrate the crushing of “the 1996 class project”  (read “fiscal rectitude”) and the rise to dominance of woolly thinking and left populism in an uneasy alliance with a new more voracious layer of vampire capitalist aspirants.

And here comes stout Pravin Gordhan and the new parliamentary autocue to wipe away my cynical fears. He said it loud and clear for all to hear:

Special appreciation is therefore due to Minister Manuel for his sound stewardship of our public finances.

The new Minister of Finance stood before our parliament and clearly phrased the budget in the terms of this ANC’s election manifesto (emphasising education, health, rural development/agrarian reform/land, crime/corruption and the creation of decent jobs). However he did so while clearly placing himself within the macro-economic framework of the past – including by continuing to relax exchange controls and defending inflation targeting.

I have no reason to think that Gordhan will gradually bow to pressures from any quarter before the the real budget early next year. This does not mean that we won’t have higher taxation and more poverty relief in future. In a country like South Africa these thrusts are inevitable and appropriate.

So the chickens that actually came home to roost yesterday were not born in Polokwane in December 2007. They are in fact the fruits of pro-investment policies and fiscal austerity in the mid-90’s. Those chicken were hatched as part of  the macro-economic framework developed under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki and guided by the stewardship of Trevor Manuel.

Pravin Gordhan yesterday spent some of the heritage of a sound macro-economic framework that has prevailed for the last 14 years. It is this very framework that the ANC’s left-wing and Cosatu and the SACP excoriate at every opportunity. It feels better to know that the politician dealing with these issues at the centre of the Zuma government understands perfectly well what is owed to those men and women who held the line against self-serving economic populism in the 90’s – at great cost to themselves and their future careers.

Today Pravin Gordhan presents his (and Jacob Zuma’s) first Medium Term Budget Policy Statement.

The post-Polokwane guillotine has been working overtime off late and we have seen the last remnants of the Ancien Régime flushed from the party, the state and government. The last man standing is Trevor Manuel, balancing precariously on a rapidly shrinking toe-hold.

Today we learn what Polokwane is going to mean for government plans to spend and raise money – which is often the most important thing that a government of the modern age can do.

The Great Recession combined with the extensive social commitments of Zuma’s backers means money is going to be in short supply – the Polokwane victors will have to find more (through taxation or borrowing) or they are going to have to cut their spending plans.

I think these are the questions that will reveal most about where our new government is leading us:

What level of budget deficit will Pravin Gordhan be prepared to run?

What level of tax increase does he (and our president and our president’s allies) estimate is bearable in the South African context?

Will Pravin give in to Cosatu/SACP’s plans for limitless support of loss making state enterprises?

Will Pravin Gordhan support expenditure of public-sector wage increases – to the degree that the trade union ally wants?

Will he find money for the unexpected increase in the A400M Airbus?

Will infrastructure continue to drive the economy and to what degree does the Polokwane victory for increasing the child grant to 18 year olds represent a shift in priorities?

In general, how much money can become available for social programmes?

It really is crunch time. I imagine many investors and business men and women have suspended judgement of the new management of the party and the state but have been increasingly concerned about how specific voices have come to dominate all public discourse. Let’s call these Vavi’s voice, Nzimande’s voice and  Malema’s voice.

Investors are not as easily spooked by political bombast as you may imagine. They tend to wait to see whether government puts our money where its mouth is first – remembering that this government and these politicians increasingly have a ‘potty mouth’ as Americans endearingly say.

Today financial markets will see for the first time into which mouth government will put our money. The conclusion investors in financial markets reach – which will ultimately be reflected in capital flows that aggregate their buying and selling decision – will be the Polokwane chickens coming home to roost.

It is a good week for governance issues on the African continent. The government of Niger may disagree of course since the West African nation with a population of over 15 million, was suspended as a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on October 20.

An ECOWAS spokesperson said:

The holding of the elections today in total disregard of the authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and government is a clear move by the authorities in Niger to further entrench the constitutional illegality currently prevailing in the country.

That statement speaks volumes and challenges one of the most commonly held and oft perpetuated myths about Africa and African politics – that we do not or cannot stand up for democracy and good governance without external intervention. Maybe in the past, not so now. On a very ordinary level, I noticed on Nigerian independence day that every single Nigerian friend of mine, regardless of geographical location, that posted a celebratory note about 49 years of independence also challenged Nigerian leaders to do better on corruption and democracy. Yes they were proud Nigerians but they also recognized past failings and called for a better way going forward. Read the full story on Niger’s suspension here.

ECOWAS is not punishing Niger, but rather handing out some tough love and challenging Nigerien leaders to raise the bar by simply restoring:

… constitutional legality.

Speaking of raising the bar, African leaders got a resounding wake up call from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which announced on Monday that there will be no 2009 Ibrahim Prize Laureate or as Mo Ibrahim himself explained:

This year the Prize Committee has considered some credible candidates. However, after in-depth review, the Prize Committee could not select a winner.

The prize is awarded to a democratically elected former leader of an African nation. The field this year included Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and John Kufour, former president of Ghana. I have to say my initial reaction was one of suspicion that perhaps the Mo Ibrahim Foundation could not sustain the annual prize which awards US$5million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter to the winner.

Then I was plain annoyed that unlike the Nobel Peace Prize committee and its strategic award to Obama at a time when he can choose to escalate or end a war, the Foundation had missed an opportunity to continue to encourage leaders across the continent to do better by their nations and by their people. I am watching with interest what will become of the prize. I think this controversial decision has served to bring the award to the attention of a lot of people in Africa and out of Africa. That’s a good thing because the Foundation’s work is far more than the award for retired leaders, as Ibrahim explained, the Foundation:

… was established to stimulate debate around, and improve the quality of, African governance. Although there is much focus on the prize, the Foundation is engaged in many other activities to help improve governance.

If nothing else, the new and traditional media coverage generated shows clearly that Africa is taking governance seriously by taking action where necessary as ECOWAS did with Niger and raising the bar for what Africans expect of good leaders, as the Mo Ibrahim Foundation did. Yes there is still work to do, but we are on the right track.

Past recipients of the prize are Festus Mogae of Botswana and Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique. I still think it would have been nice to see a West African leader join the ranks but I appreciate the gauntlet that has been thrown down for African leaders – this prize must be earned with high standards.

There are those that argue the bar may be set so high no one will be able to get over it but I think it is human nature to reach higher for something good and to meet then exceed the challenge. This is a call to action for the next generation of African leaders, to raise the quality of leadership across the continent and with it the fortunes and governance of their nations.

Joel Netshitenzhe has resigned as Director General in Trevor Manuel’s National Planning Commission in the presidency.

This comes a day after President Zuma reshuffled and attempted to explain the various roles to be played by the various ministers who fall into the economics cluster. The Business Day article suggested that Zuma had caved in to Cosatu’s concerns.

This ‘explanation and reshuffle’ comes, in turn, after weeks of bitter criticism, particularly from Cosatu, about the apparent sidelining of ‘their’ Minister Ebrahim Patel of Economic Development.

Now there might be a thousand different things going on, but Joel Netshitenzhe is a crucial ANC intellectual who has played a leading role in crafting the delicate balance the organisation has struck between global capital markets/foreign investors on the one hand and Cosatu/the SACP and the  ANC’s left wing on the other.

The ideological and policy stance of government and the ruling alliance – and particularly the role of “the left” and the silo of  issues and policy drives traditionally associated with the left – are currently being fiercely contested.

The concern – transient perhaps, and associated with the news flow – is that Joel was pushed or that he found the drift untenable.

*”Peter Mayibuye” was Joel’s nom de plume from the mid 80’s in exile when he edited the ANC’s journal Mayibuye as well as headed the ANC Department of  Information and Propaganda (yes,  they actually called it that) and served on the ANC’s Political Military Committee.

Remember Mo Ibrahim’s prize for “good governance” awarded annually to an African leader? The winner gets $5 million over 10 years and $200,000 annually for life thereafter. Previous winners have included such prudent politicians as Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano and Botswana’s Festus Mogae.

Apparently Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s disastrous second democratic president (1999-2008), was among the candidates for this year’s prize.

This year, however, there won’t any winner because Mo Ibrahim can’t find a suitable candidate. Nobody deserves it.

Read more.

It is a small sign, but hopeful and interesting.

In the last week:

• Billy Masetlha has drawn on deep ANC traditions to argue that the role Cosatu and the SACP are playing threatens the ANC’s ability to lead all classes and groups in South Africa. He has restated a clear premise of traditional ANC thinking: the organisation can never be socialist in its policy and orientation.
• Joel Netshitenzhe is quoted in several newspapers this morning calling for the ANC not to attempt to micro-manage government and the state – and urging respect for the constitution.

Why is this important?

It’s important because :

1. at Polokwane in 2007 resolutions were passed (and a general ethos prevailed) that would paralyse government by forcing it to wait for a mandate from an ill-defined “ruling alliance” before it could do anything – including make key appointments to parastatals;
2. weakness at the ANC centre meant “the left” (and many other players) came away from Polokwane with the confusing notion that “the left”, including Cosatu and the SACP, were the cornerstone of the new management and the new atmosphere of “ultra-democracy” meant that their policies must be the policies of government.

Thabo Mbeki dealt with the same issues.

Mbeki on socialism? The much reviled “1996 class project” refers to the macro-economic policy developed by the then ANC government under Mbeki which was market friendly and compliant to global capital markets. Mbeki’s theory was South Africa needed foreign investment and the only way we would get it was to guarantee private property and the relatively free movement of capital. “The left” hated the thrust and the details of the policy.

Mbeki on government being micromanaged? Post the infamous Growth, Employment and Redistribution macro-economic policy,  Mbeki set in motion a process of moving power – in the form of day-to-day decision making as well as policy formulation – away from the ANC and towards government. Because of his predisposition and because his policies were under attack from “the left” he centralised power further, into the presidency and his own office.

There is no question that Polokwane was mostly a good thing – Mbeki’s centralisation had made the ANC and government an intellectual wasteland and a rubber stamp for decisions he himself was taking – decisions that both at the time and certainly in retrospect seem barely competent.

But Polokwane went way too far. The snap-back effect from Mbeki’s deathly centralism was ultra-democracy and a set of policies that are potentially deeply hostile to the private sector. You can’t play honest broker if you are specifically cheering for one side – which is what Cosatu and the SACP are, on a very wide scale, vociferously calling for the ANC to do vis-a-vis the private sector – especially with regards to the labour market.

Joel Netshitenzhe and Billy Masetlha have both, at one time, been confidants of Thabo Mbeki. But their credentials as deeply committed democrats who have given much of their lives (they are both in their mid-50’s) to the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa is beyond question. Both Cosatu and the SACP have already launched counter-attacks against Billy. I have no doubt that they will see Joel as a more complex and subtle – but potentially more powerful – threat to their narrow agenda.

Senior member of the ruling African National Congress pleaded says he’s not guilty in the first day of his corruption trial.  Jackie Selebi, former Interpol president is being charged with having links to organized crime and accepting bribes worth 1.2m rand ($157,000).

During the case at Johannesburg’s High Court, prosecutors will seek to prove that Mr Selebi, 58, received corrupt payments over a five-year period.  At the heart of the allegations is Mr Selebi’s relationship with convicted drug smuggler, Glen Agliotti, who is also accused of links to the murder of a prominent mining magnate.

Jackie Selebi’s relations with former South African President Thabo Mbeki has also called for concern that the ousted president protected Selebi when corruption charges originally were filed while Mbeki was still president.  Mbeki was finally forced to place Selebi on leave as police chief because of the allegations.

Mr. Zuma,  South Africa’s new president – who had graft charges against him dropped on technical grounds shortly before he became head of state – has promised to make a priority of fighting corruption, a major issue in the country.

But Monday’s defence statement suggests the trial could become a sounding board for allegations reaching towards the highest levels of the ruling party.

I was forwarded the front and back covers of a new book–edited by William Gumede (author of a book on Thabo Mbeki) and Leslie Dikeni (brother of poet Sandile)–on South African intellectual culture. I don’t have more information except that it appears to focus on the Thabo Mbeki era, a period characterized by virulent anti-intellectualism. Dikeni’s chapter is on “pseudo-intellectuals,” while Jeremy Cronin writes on the late exiled ANC intellectual, Comrade Mzala–remember Mzala’s 1980s book on Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, “Chief with a Double Agenda”? which had to be pulled from library shelves after the Chief objected?

The book also has contributions from Jonathan Jansen (the first black university president of the University of the Free State), US-based literature professor Grant Farred, Mahmood Mamdani, and poet James Matthews.

I am curious to read Cronin’s take on Mzala.

After Joe Wilson’s “you lie!”, after Kanye West at the MTV awards, after Serena Williams’ outburst at the US Open, you may think:  enough already with nasty speech! Well, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. This week, a report on a series of Dutch cartoon that are offensive – really offensive. Deliberately so, according to the Dutch-based Arab group behind them. The group claims that Dutch law exercises a double standard when it comes to speech and religion: while it often censors anti-semitic speech – like the cartoons in question – it tolerates anti-Muslim speech.

Then, gadfly-journalist Max du Preez.

Du Preez has been upsetting his fellow South Africans for decades – first, he upset his father by becoming a communist, then he upset the apartheid regime with his muckracking journalism. He edited Vrye Weekblad the only Afrikaans-language paper that exposed the murders, beatings and corruption of the racist government.  That upset almost an entire people: du Preez’s people,  South Africa’s Afrikaners. Only after the end of apartheid, when morality ceased to be a moveable feast, did du Preez’s father speak to him again.

These days, du Preez has new enemies: the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which fired him; former president Thabo Mbeki who du Preez called a womanizer; and agricultural giant Monsanto, which du Preez says is ruining rural  South Africa by spreading genetically modified crops.

Finally, government free speech. This doesn’t come up much. Governments oversee free speech laws; they rarely get caught up in their own free speech shenanigans. Not the Danish government. Not Denmark’s  tourist bureau. For its latest edgy advertizing campaign the bureau staged a faux one night stand between a young blonde Danish woman and a foreign man with apparently no name, and no nationality. Johnny Foreigner, as it were.  Here’s the ad:

This was supposed to be a come-on to foreign visitors; instead it had Danish politicians trying to curb the speech of their own government.

Listen in iTunes or here.