Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 566

Angolan Solutions

The Angolan anti-corruption activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais recently made the pages of Africa Confidential, which discussed his having filed a criminal complaint against three prominent Angolans with the Angolan Attorney General's Office.

You can't read about the details of the case in Africa Confidential without a subscription, but you can read about it on Mr. Marques de Morais' website for free.

The case alleges that Manuel Domingos Vicente, the Chairman of the Board and C.E.O. of Sonangol E.P., Angola's state owned oil company; General Hélder Manuel Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa," Minister of State and Head of the Military Bureau of the President of the Republic; and General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento "Dino," advisor to the Minister of State and Head of the Military Bureau of the President of the Republic are guilty of crimes of corruption under article 73 of the Angolan constitution and the Law on Public Probity (the main pieces of anti-corruption legislation in Angola's newly approved – 2010 – Constitution) for their ownership in Nazaki Oil and Gaz, S.A.

While Mr. Marques de Morais is often accused of being backed, encouraged and paid by foreign interests (if you read Portuguese check out this January 15, 2012 editorial in the state daily Jornal de Angola in which the editor accuses him of crimes against the freedom of the press and in which that question is explored more generally), his concern is very specifically with Angola and with Angolan law. What has always struck me about his perspective, even during the bad old days of the civil war, is his insistence that Angolans need to resolve their own problems with their own resources, be they material, intellectual or cultural. He appeals to Angolan law, Angolan courts and Angolan practices (like the very name of his website maka – see the website for an explanation) to resolve Angolan issues.

Elections are scheduled for September 2012 so it is unlikely that anything will happen with the case before then. Rumors have circulated since mid-2011 that Manuel Vicente will be tapped as José Eduardo dos Santos' successor as President. Just last week Vicente announced to Sonangol's Board of Directors that he will be leaving to take a position as Minister of State for Economic Coordination. The weekly paper Semanário Angolense said the Political Bureau of the ruling MPLA will soon meet to decide whether Vicente or the current Vice President, Fernando Piedade dos Santos "Nandó," will be the VP candidate, a question that has been raising some dust in party headquarters. Nandó can make no claim to greater probity, he's just got more mileage with the ruling party. But this does underscore a growing fissure between the President and the ruling party and/or within the MPLA, which for long time observers is not new news but perhaps exposes some different alignments.

Pharoahe Monch is 'Still Standing'

[image error]

One of the best rappers alive, featuring the lady who sang the original hook on "You Got Me." Off Monch's 'W.A.R. (We Are Renegades)' – the album has been out for more than 6 months already, but the music video is new. The subtext is Monch's battle with asthma. Director Terence Nance has done work for Blitz The Ambassador before. Is that Jean Grae hanging around in the studio? This is your music break.

More Benetton Politics

I swore I wasn't going to add a thing to the discussion about the idiotic poster campaign by the student/youth wing of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance about a future non-racial love-fest. I have remained shtum (yiddish for 'quiet') about its horrid aesthetics, its awful family snap-shot quality. (Some have claimed it's like a Benetton or Calvin Klein commercial which should leave said brands reeling). I have silenced myself in the face of the straight(ened) hair of the black model which, seriously DA students, is insulting. And, of course, I, like many others out there, have been annoyed at the shallowness of their vision of a non-racial future. Here in North America, it's reported as a "racial furore" and "heated debate". But then I heard "Q" on CBC radio the other day. And watched CNN yesterday morning. On "Q", smart (and quite adorable) host Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Canada's Globe and Mail correspondent in Joburg, the usually reliable Geoffrey Yorke, about the furore evoked by the poster. Listen about 5 minutes in. Besides for Ghomeshi's all too brief attempts at steering the interview to a substantial critique of the politics of the poster, the correspondent's remarks were more like an extended advertorial for the DA. (The DA grew out of "1970s liberal politics," at 16% is the "biggest opposition," the DA has "done a good  job of recruiting high profile and young black politicians.") As were Nadia Bilchik's on CNN. To be fair to Bilchik, CNN doesn't lend itself to in-depth critique. But to suggest that DASO's poster is a great success because it gets us talking is a bit off the mark. Unfortunately both Bilchik and Yorke also missed the most exciting aspect of the DASO "furore": how the poster was parodied on social media (as in the one above). Especially since Yorke embraces Twitter so enthusiastically. Hence my broken silence.

* BTW, the poster is as shallow as the politics associated with it. We didn't refer to it as Benetton politics for nothing. Seems one of the officials at the DA youth wing, Aimee Franklin, just sourced the picture from a stock photo image company … based in New York.

Broken Silence

I swore I wasn't going to add a thing to the discussion about the idiotic poster campaign by the student/youth wing of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance about a future non-racial love-fest. I have remained shtum (yiddish for 'quiet') about its horrid aesthetics, its awful family snap-shot quality. (Some have claimed it's like a Benetton or Calvin Klein commercial which should leave said brands reeling). I have silenced myself in the face of the straight(ened) hair of the black model which, seriously DA students, is insulting. And, of course, I, like many others out there, have been annoyed at the shallowness of their vision of a non-racial future. Here in North America, it's reported as a "racial furore" and "heated debate". But then I heard "Q" on CBC radio the other day. And watched CNN yesterday morning. On "Q", smart (and quite adorable) host Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Canada's Globe and Mail correspondent in Joburg, the usually reliable Geoffrey Yorke, about the furore evoked by the poster. Listen about 5 minutes in. Besides for Ghomeshi's all too brief attempts at steering the interview to a substantial critique of the politics of the poster, the correspondent's remarks were more like an extended advertorial for the DA. (The DA grew out of "1970s liberal politics," at 16% is the "biggest opposition," the DA has "done a good  job of recruiting high profile and young black politicians.") As were Nadia Bilchik's on CNN. To be fair to Bilchik, CNN doesn't lend itself to in-depth critique. But to suggest that DASO's poster is a great success because it gets us talking is a bit off the mark. Unfortunately both Bilchik and Yorke also missed the most exciting aspect of the DASO "furore": how the poster was parodied on social media (as in the one above). Especially since Yorke embraces Twitter so enthusiastically. Hence my broken silence.

"Can you think of a country that starts with the letter U?"

You've seen those "Are you smarter than a 5 year old" videos on Youtube (it's an actual TV show) or marveled at the intelligence of Miss Teen South Carolina, now here's the kids from a suburban high school in Washington State. We learn that "Somebody Bin Laden" is the Vice-President of the United States, that the US gained its independence in the Civil War, that Canada is actually a state in the US, that "South America is a country that borders the US." Oh, and one student suggested Europe and Utopia are countries that start with a U.

Mdu Ntuli's 'Izikhokho Show'

You'll excuse our South African focus today here and on Twitter. A burger chain writes in braille; author JM Coetzee writes about cricket; "a gym member tells of racist insults"; "Minister of Arts and Culture supports boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel"; and here cartoon artist Mdu Ntuli wraps up the first month of the new year on his Izikohko Show taking a jab at Trevor Noah and the DA's Benetton campaign. A laugh helps, sometimes.

Humor. Mdu Ntuli's 'Izikhokho Show'

You'll excuse our South African focus today here and on Twitter. A burger chain writes in braille; author JM Coetzee writes about cricket; "a gym member tells of racist insults"; "Minister of Arts and Culture supports boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel"; and here cartoon artist Mdu Ntuli wraps up the first month of the new year on his Izikohko Show taking a jab at Trevor Noah and the DA's Benetton campaign. A laugh helps, sometimes.

'Braille Burgers'

In what some see as innovative advertising and others as a publicity stunt, a South African burger chain has a bright idea for a campaign to woo blind customers: serving them burgers with words in Braille spelled out on their buns with sesame seeds.

JM Coetzee's Cricketing Life

It was with some intrigue that my J.M. Coetzee google alert recently informed me that the elusive author had published something new; this time, apparently, in a contribution to a book celebrating, of all things, Australian cricket.

I have an acquaintance in Cape Town – a professor at a well-known South African university – who, in a vain attempt to divine the inner life of Coetzee, allegedly took to pilfering trash from the rubbish bins outside his Rondebosch apartment. If the apocryphal memory serves, it did little to cast light on the famously private author: yes, he is a vegetarian, and, yes, he would throw away untold invitations to public, or semi-public, events.

Such is desperation of the Coetzeephile, for it is an unrequited love – stealing on scraps in the wake of a stubborn and professional recluse. I confess my allegiance to this flock. It has, at times, bordered on the obsessive, and, on the rare occasion that I encounter another devotee, it can render dinner party conversation arcane and alienating for the interlopers in our midst.

In a high water mark, I once had an email exchange with the master, in which I alerted him to the ANC's critique of Disgrace in their submission to the Human Rights Commission's hearings on Racism in the Media. If conspiracy theorists (John Lanchester, Hermann Giliomee and the DA spring to mind) are to be believed, my next act – faxing a copy of the ANC's submission to the University of Cape Town's English Department – was directly instrumental in Coetzee's decision to leave South Africa for the antipodes. Having transmitted the document to Coetzee, I ventured a request for an opinion of the ANC's critique: He thanked me, but stonewalled; he would prefer not to comment.

The news that he had contributed to a book entitled Australia: Story of a Cricket Country rankled slightly. It appeared that the South African Nobel Prize winner was now actively ingratiating himself with the Australian conspiracy that he is, on the basis of his meager sojourn in that country, in fact, an "Australian writer". Such an open display of apparent Australian jingoism would rank only slightly lower on a scale of treason than the thought of a South African participating in an exercise documenting Australian cricketing excellence.

Thankfully, having finally tracked down the elusory text, there is little evidence of either betrayal. Instead, in a volume otherwise dedicated to chronicling the wonders of Australian manhood, giving the poms a good stuffing, and sub-urban pastoral life, Coetzee treats us to the vision of the author, twelve years of age:

… huddled over the radio in the early mornings while the rest of the household was asleep. I followed the exploits of the Springboks in Australia.

Cricket is a game steeped in tradition and nostalgia, beloved of pedants throughout the former British colonies (those of North America, excepted). Coetzee's contribution here is to save from the gnawing of the mice the exploits of "fifteen unsung South Africans and the revolution in fielding", in his recollection of the South African tour of Australia of 1952.

The chapter recalls a time when the Springbok cricket team (the Proteas since South Africa's post-apartheid re-admission to international cricket) – now at or about the top of the international game – constituted, together with India and New Zealand "a second league among Test-playing nations" playing second fiddle to "England, Australia and the rising West Indians". The Springboks at the time, as a consequence of "[fielding] all-white teams, had no cricketing relations with India or the West Indies", and were, as a consequence of the limitations of a racist, class bound, and ethnic cabal – "white, middle-class, English-speaking [having] gone to private schools with a strong emphasis on sport ('games')" – rather rubbish:

In two postwar test series against England – an England that included Len Hutton, Denis Compton and Alec Bedser – the South Africans had not won a single match. In their sole postwar series against Australia, played at home, they lost four Tests by big margins and drawn a fifth.

So rubbish, in fact, that:

… the South African cricket authorities had had to provide a financial guarantee of ten thousand pounds to induce a reluctant Australian Board of Control to accept the visitors.

In an effort to forestall another capitulation to the rampant Aussies, the Springbok Captain, Jack Cheetham, and manager, Ken Viljoen,

felt free to try a novel strategic approach: to give top priority to fielding, using this hitherto underexploited department of the game as part of the attack. To this end they ran an exacting schedule of fielding practices and expected a level of fitness unusual among cricket in those days.

As Coetzee recalls:

I am just old enough to remember an era when it was quite normal, quite acceptable, to field a team in which there were one or two players who had butterfingers and needed to be hidden at fine leg or third man, or in which senior players with creaky joints would be earmarked for the slips; when it was more or less accepted that while younger men might dive to stop a ball or race to cut off a boundary, such spectacular exertions were not really expected of established players.

After 1952 the relaxed, anything goes attitude towards fielding began to change visibly – certainly in South Africa, but also in the rest of the world… one could detect a hardening of feeling among spectators against incompetent fielders and generally against teams that seemed simply not to be doing their wholehearted best in the field.

Ultimately, the Test series with Australia was squared with the Springboks and Baggy Greens winning two a piece, and drawing one. Coetzee, thus frames the exploits of these childhood heroes, as laying down

something of a landmark in the history of the game, at least for forms of the game played under a critical public eye. Not only would good-hearted public tolerance of incompetent fielding henceforth begin to evaporate, but it had been convincingly demonstrated that a middling group of players could be moulded into a winning team around a core of excellence in fielding, the department of the game in which the quality of the ensemble – as opposed to the qualities of individual players – comes out most clearly.

So fellow travelers, what, one may ask – superlative use of punctuation aside – is there to divine from these fine lines? Perhaps Coetzee, adrift from the country of his provenance, is purposefully cocking a snoop to those who now claim him in their name? Perhaps it is nothing? I have always argued that South Africa did not lose Coetzee to Australia – he continues to maintain a home in Cape Town, after all (was he previously 'lost' through his many years in the UK and USA?) – and it is clear, in these and other writings, that wherever his cosmopolitan life now takes him, South Africa remains deeply etched in his mind, memories and work. "I did not leave South Africa because I had to," he has been quoted as saying. "In fact I didn't so much leave South Africa – a country with which I retain strong emotional ties – as come to Australia."

Super Bowl Predictions

Written by Elliot Ross*

I am trying to avoid the media blitz on the Superbowl and anybody keen to enthuse about all the "amazing" commercials. But sometimes I can't look away. One trope gets me every time. It involves The New York Times and Giants linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka. Last week The Times did a profile of Kiwanuka. It recounts his tragic family history back in African: he's the grandson of Uganda's first prime-minister, Benedicto Kiwanuka, who was murdered by Idi Amin. Here's what interesting: Basically the same story was published about Kiwanuka last week, in the Times in 2007 and before that in 2006. Like that's the only story to tell about Kiwanuka.

Times reporter Sam Borden has certainly pulled out his best hushed prose for this one.

"Two years ago, Kiwanuka traveled to Uganda during the N.F.L. off-season. He was joined by some family members and a former teammate, linebacker Kawika Mitchell. Kiwanuka had been to Uganda before — he went for the first time in third grade — but this trip was different. Instead of being shocked by the sights and smells of a struggling society as he was when he was a boy, he wanted to use his fame and money to help. His goal, he told Mitchell, was to bring clean, running water to a school in the village where his mother's family lived.

Mitchell recalled arriving at the school and being stunned. Many of the buildings seemed to be fashioned out of clay, he said, and in one corner of a classroom was a stream of termites eating their way through the floorboards.

The children, though, flocked to Mitchell and Kiwanuka. They did not know about the N.F.L., did not know about where these men had come from. "They just knew we were trying to help them," Mitchell said in a telephone interview."

Termites indeed! The linebackers – already holding their noses to ward off the stench of a struggling society – must have been scared out of their wits.

At least the children were good enough to be absolutely knowledgeless, just cute little embodiments of gratitude, which is of course how it has to be.

Kiwanuka is probably much more thoughtful than the Times makes him out to be, but it seems the only way to sustain interest in the lives of mostly African and African American football stars is to either talk about their personal tragedy or else to show how moved they are by the plight of other black people. (Kiwanuka, incidentally grew up in Indiannapolis.)

The media (and the NFL for promotional purposes) have noticed that their more players who are the children of African immigrants. And the template–as we can see, for example, in this piece on Nnamdi Asomugha, Madieu Williams and Ndamukong Suh on CNN from about 2 years ago–is to express or mediate the Africanness of these players, not as sportsmen, butthrough the practice of a reassuringly Western kind of life-touching-humanitarian-philanthropic-giving-back-charity work.

And I've just heard that Madonna's going to be singing at half time.

* I can't vouch for everyone else here on AIAC. Sean, for example, plans to watch some of it, though not Madonna or the commercials.