Archives:
Getting to know Jacob Zuma
It looks like we’re all going to get to know Jacob Zuma pretty well over the next five (or ten or more?) years, now that his court troubles are over and his path to the South African presidency is clear. Who is he? Here are some answers.
Is Kenya’s coalition doomed?
Recent reports that militia groups - armed, funded, trained and supported by leading politicians - are growing in strength in Kenya is a major blow to the country’s political stability. During the December 2007 and January 2008 election violence, ethnic militias terrorized opponents in the Rift Valley. Rift Valley province is really the open sore [...]
News flash: Africa now on economists’ radar screens
When I started studying economics as an undergraduate at MIT in the early 1990s, development economics was at best a peripheral field, and at worst an embarrassing interest to admit to. When I applied to graduate school, and listed development economics, political economy and economic history as my three fields of interest, a terrified letter-writer [...]
More worrying authoritarian trends in Africa
The news out of Madagascar is not good: democratically elected president Marc Ravalomanana has been pushed out of power essentially by a military coup, which has installed the photogenic 34-year old former DJ Andry Rajoelina in power. Besides the fundamental problem that Mr. Rajoelina was not elected, he also appears not to be constitutionally qualified [...]
Will the 2010s look like the 1980s in Africa?
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has called for African leaders and the international community to take concerted actions (although I couldn’t find any specifics) to help Africa weather the current economic crisis. Like the previous commodities boom-then-bust cycle in the 1970s and 1980s, the current downturn threatens to erase the income, health and nutrition gains of [...]
Will the economic downturn push Sierra Leone back to war?
Recent news reports from Sierra Leone, a country where I’ve worked since 2004, aren’t looking good. Youth unemployment is sky high, at 60 percent. And these aren’t just any old youth. Many are former soldiers in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) or the Sierra Leone Army (SLA), groups that terrorized civilians during the country’s brutal [...]
Will the ICC’s indictment bring peace to Sudan?
The International Criminal Court in The Hague today ordered the arrest of Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, the first time they’ve brought such charges against an acting head of state, for his active backing of violence against civilians in the Darfur region.
This is huge step forward for international justice, and may make future tyrants think twice [...]
Guinea Bissau’s President assassinated
A violent day in African politics: President Vieira of Guinea Bissau was assassinated today, only months after a near fatal attack. The country has long been home ground to economic gangsters - including drug traffickers and rapacious army leaders. I wonder whether violent attacks of this kind, as well as coups, civil wars, and election [...]
Ngugi has done it again
Ngugi wa Thiongo’s new book “Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance” (2009) is a fantastic read, which summarizes and updates some of the arguments that Ngugi first developed in “Decolonizing the Mind” back in 1982. Ngugi’s thesis that an intellectual and cultural renaissance is only possible in Africa is Africans speak, write, read, think, [...]
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