Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 645

Beyoncé and the Hyena

American R&B singer Beyonce has described the new video for her single "Run This World (Girls)" as "futuristic," "electronic" and "African." Of the overload of half-references in the video, some things came to mind: Pieter Hugo's hyena men (or rather, the hyenas on a leash) make an appearance, and so are the two pantsula dancers in Converse flanking her midway through the song. But the real question is what she doing planning to 'build a nation' or 'take over the world' from Georgia (the country)? –Tom Devriendt.

Perspective on 2011 SA Local Elections

If you're tired of the nonsense published in The New York Times or on the BBC website about yesterday's local elections in South Africa or can't bear the spin that will come from ANC (this points to widespread approval of its current leadership) or Democratic Alliance spin doctors (tripling your vote from 2% to 6% among black voters is an achievement), see below the insights of Steven Friedman, still one of the few good political analysts out of South Africa. With his permission I took these from Steven's Facebook page; he had posted them throughout the morning:

"… We have had tons of analysis but still do not know exactly how this is going to end because most of the township vote is not in yet. Trends so far suggest the ANC will indeed win all metros except Cape Town and that the DA has not made any great inroads among township voters but let us see whether that is confirmed when the big votes come in. So far this has gone as I thought it would!

… Turn-out is interesting – it seems it is actually quite a bit higher than last time. What effect that has on the final vote is something we must wait to see when the township vote comes in.

…On COPE, so far the evidence is that, if your party splits down the middle, you take around half the vote you did last time! That said, I do find the commentary which talks about COPE's implosion nonsense. The results do suggest that the COPE voters who support Lekota have remained loyal to the party and that COPE will remain a factor in our politics. I find it irritating that cliches become a part of mainstream analysis because people can't be bothered to think through an issue.

… Race is still an immensely important factor for all voters – we always hear how black township voters are influenced by race but no-one mentions that white suburban voters are too. The key issue in this campaign is that the DA made a massive pitch for black voters. My sense is that they did not make serious inroads. Race will remain important to South African voters for a long time to come.

… I haven't seen anything in this election to suggest that [a situation in which the ruling party really has to worry that the opposition could beat it in a national election] is now thecase. The DA has run a very effective campaign but they still cannot attract majority black voters in any numbers. The ANC will face a serious threat at the polls only when it splits again and faces an opposition which comes out of the ANC.

… [The DA] may be getting a little too excited about results thus far but they should certainly get over 20% and 25% is not impossible. I think this comes from a consolidation of the opposition vote – the DA has persuaded more opposition voters to come out and vote and to vote specifically for it – and from the fact that some ANC voters have stayed away. So part of the DA's gain is not because they have won more votes but because the ANC has won less.

… On opposition parties, both we and they should acknowledge that parties can play important roles even if they are not the government: I know of democracies where parties are in opposition for 100 years and they still play a role. Opposition parties should work out what they can do to represent their voters – being in government is not the only way they can do that. Of course, if the ANC splits again and we have very competitive elections, opposition parties may play a role in coalitions but no-one knows when that will happen.

I think the ruling party has two problems. It hasn't found a way to deal with its internal conflicts and it is becoming alienated from many of its voters who feel that leaders don't take them seriously. Any ground it has lost are a result of those two factors.

… My sense is that the ANC has not made any inroads this time into the 'white' vote. A key reason for the DA's gains is that they have increased their support among whites and other racial minorities. You may have noticed that, at first, the ANC was way behind in the major metros – it is still behind in Johannesburg. That is because the results which come in first are those from the mainly white suburbs.

… I don't think we should automatically assume that rural people [still voting for the ANC and not for opposition parties] are less informed. But if you look at the results, it is still clear that race is a much more important issue than rural or urban. In general, South Africans vote their identities – they vote for who for who they think speaks for people like them. Race is very important but so are all sorts of other identity factors including tradition – who your family has supported through the years. Unless the opposition comes out of the ANC it cannot persuade most voters that it shares their identity."

Learn more about Steven here.

African Urbanism

Not only is Edgar Pieterse (from the African Centre for Cities) a prolific writer (read his recent City Futures, the African Cities Reader and Counter-Currents — these last two as an editor), he's also a good speaker. This talk at L.S.E. dates from earlier this year. "Pieterse argues for a new way of thinking about African cities to accompany (the) surge of interest (from architects and planners, academics, development agencies and urban think-tanks) and to replace traditional views of African cities as sites of absence and neglect."–Tom Devriendt.

The maid from Guinea

When we're not besieged by news about how still IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on suicide watch, how his various French supporters claim the whole thing is a conspiracy (he won't get to run for President anymore), that he was upset about being on a 'perp walk' (that's the practice of parading celebrities in front of the media when they're booked at a police station; the former French cultural minister Jack Lang said it was like 'lynching'); that Strauss-Kahn loves his daughter and is not a gorrilla, we notice how some members of the media are gleefully hounding his alleged victim. To the effect that the woman, an immigrant from Guinea in West Africa, is now in hiding. At some point, her lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro was forced to deny that she had an "agenda" and that she did not know who Strauss-Kahn was.

The tabloid New York Post, based on circumstantial evidence, ran a cover story today claiming she is HIV positive; a claim which her lawyer denied. How The New York Post introduced this false claim:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn may have more to worry about than a possible prison sentence.

Ben Stein, a rightwing American columnist:

I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

But the tone in US media–where Strauss-Kahn does not guarantee ratings, especially on TV–pale next to the commentary by the French media. There the alleged victim has been identified by name.  Apart from repeating the HIV positive claims of The Post, they also include gems :

In the paper "Le Parisien," an Indian taxi driver–interviewed in front of the hotel where the alleged assault took place– said that she has "large breasts and a nice ass."

The original reference:

Un chauffeur de taxi indien décrit à quelques journalistes postés devant le Sofitel ce que se disent les employés de l'hôtel et qui est repris tôt ce matin dans la presse américaine :« le voiturier m'a dit que cette femme de ménage était une trentenaire très jolie, qu'elle avait de gros seins et de belles fesses.

And this from RMC.FR, a radio station:  "The [defense] lawyers were surprised…when they saw a young woman who was very unattractive/not too seductive."

The original:

Les avocats auraient été surpris, lors de la comparution, de voir arriver une jeune femme très peu séduisante.

If she were, indeed, "seductive," whatever form of appearance or behaviour that may constitute such a descriptor, I wonder how the media would have jumped to frame her as an agent in her own brutalising.

Music Break

Some catchy, and barely tolerable, pop from JR–remember him from the kwaiti/dance hit 'Make the Circle Bigger'–featuring the anti-Waddy and very unserious rapper, Jack Parow, as well as a hook from a singer of the Afrikaans pop group, Die Heuwels Fantasies.

Vote for Toilets

South Africans vote for new local councillors today. Once the spin and the electioneering clear, we'll try and make sense of it as well as of the media coverage around here.

Toilets

South Africans vote for new local councillors. Once the spin and the electioneering clear, we'll try and make sense of it.

Nigeria Votes

Benedicte Kurzen's often graphic images of the recent (April 16) presidential elections in Nigeria and its aftermath–the elections were won by Goodluck Jonathan. At last count, more than 200 people were dead and nearly 40,000 people displaced in post-election violence.

The full series here

We have no money

New video for South African Tumi and The Volume's 'Asinamali'. You know what 'Asinamali' stands for, right?

Revolt

Voltz's reading of Johannesburg. A first track and video from his upcoming album 'Revolt'.