Here are a bunch of stories to start off your week:

David Smith of The Mail & Guardian argues that District 9 represents the first in what we can expect to be a stream of post-Apartheid movies. Because of my own interest both in the negotiation process that led to the end of Apartheid and in rugby, and the fact that i am working on a project on rugby, race, and nationalism in the “new South Africa,” I am especially interested in (and somewhat wary of) Invictus, which will bring an adapted version of John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy to the big screen, with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman in key roles. (Freeman will be playing Nelson Mandela in what will surely be Oscar bait.)

The three most prominent candidates in Gabon’s presidential election are claiming victory. Official results are unknown. Buckle your seatbelts in anticipation of turbulence.

In this lengthy review essay on Sudan and Darfur New Republic editor Richard Just gives Mahmood Mamdani a much-needed intellectual throttling.

Jacob Zuma has weighed in on the main conflict in the Middle East without managing actually to say anything. And The New York Times praises South Africa’s progress on public health and especially on AIDS policy.

The Springboks continue to cruise in the Tri-Nations, and to my mind, their victory over Australia this weekend finally showed them playing the best kind of rugby, a flourishing, try-scoring, open field, run-oriented game. But the Boks need to finish off strong in the two remaining games.

Jendayi Frazer, who currently teaches at Carnegie Mellon and who was assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2005-2009 has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal laying out “Four Ways to Help Africa.” I’ll briefly address each in turn:

1) Place Eritrea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Eritrea does indeed support terrorists. But it seems pretty nakedly American-centered to say that of all of the things the United States should “help Africa,” the number one among these just happens to cohere with the Bush administration’s view of the world. Africans suffer from the effects of this terrorism, but I cannot help but wonder if Frazer has not revealed priorities in which African interests are second to American ones.

2) Oppose congressional legislation to extend the trade preferences in the African Growth and Opportunity Act to all developing countries. Better yet, though, would be eliminating support for the various protections and subsidies for American producers that serve to punish African exporters. I’m not sure that allowing Africans to beggar developing nations elsewhere in the world does anything other than create a race to the top of the bottom.

3) Hold a summit at the White House with the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Sure — engage with African leaders whenever there is an opportunity. But also do not be afraid to meet with them in Africa — meet in Kinshasa or Kampala or Kigali (or Bujumbura or Cape Town or Accra . . .) as well. African leaders come to the United States as supplicants. Meeting in Africa might well allow them to meet as equals, or at least as close to it as can be approximated.

4) Move the headquarters of the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) from Germany to Liberia. If there is going to be an AFRICOM, yeah, it probably ought to be based in AFRICA. More importantly, though, let’s make sure that AFRICOM is a partnership with Africans and not merely an extension of American military desires. In other words, let’s don’t let Americans determine that AFRICOM should be dealing with proposal number one (Eritrea) first and foremost. Let’s allow Africans to determine their military and strategic priorities and hope the Americans fall in line and not vice versa.

Here is the mantra: American policy toward Africa should be geared at partnership, and not coercion. An extension of the desires of the United States independent of a mutuality of interests is not an acceptable approach.

I’m swamped with meetings and classes and meetings and appointments and meetings and so the last few days have seen me get buried with a whole host of stories and links I’ve wanted to write about but have instead let pile up in my Firefox tabs, surely to ill effect of my computer’s memory and speed. Let’s see if I can dig myself out:

Wrap your head around this one: The humanitarian crisis in Somalia, according to the UN’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit, is the worst it has been in eighteen years. Is there any reason to think that next year the FSNAU won’t issue the same report and replace references to “eighteen” with “nineteen”? It is unfathomable for most of us to imagine living in a place where today is the worst day ever and tomorrow will be worse. yet that seems like the functional analogy to Somalia’s plight.

Newsflash: After four decades, Muammar Qaddafi is still baffling. We expect him to zig, he zags. (And does anyone have so unsettled a spelling of his name among the western press — can’t we have a meeting and pick one, if only for the sake of Google searches?) At some point we will reconcile ourselves to the fact that Qaddafi is about no one’s interests as much as Qaddafi’s. That’s lousy for the region, to be sure, but it will add at least a hint of rationality to our assessments of him.

The Caster Semenya story continues to baffle and intrigue and mystify. The South African World Champion in the women’s 800 meter race has been tested in South Africa and reportedly has higher-than-normal testosterone levels, but those are nonetheless well within the acceptable range. It is worth remembering that we have been down this road before with women’s sports. As long as some try to cheat, many will have to deal with the suspicions.

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma hoped to raise the issue of “deviant behaviour” in Zimbabwe. Ahh, the euphemisms that make diplomacy function.

The fighting in Darfur has died down (for now?). But the situation in the South deteriorates.

Disease has stricken the banana crops in a huge swath of central Africa. This clearly has both economic and food security ramifications.

The Springboks confront the Wallabies Down Under as heavy favorites. The Boks are saying the right things about being wary of the still-dangerous Aussies. But I am going to lay it down that the South Africans cruise to their first Tri-Nations title since 2004 by winning big in Perth.

I had planned to write a somewhat-lengthy post about the death of Ted Kennedy and his role in the anti-apartheid debate in the United States, including his 1985 trip to South Africa, but Texas in Africa beat me to the punch with a post pretty close to what I’d have written.

I will only add this: South Africa in the 1980s might well mark the most sustained American engagement with an African issue. It is easy to forget just how regularly South Africa appeared on the nightly news (kids, ask your parents) and how many column issues the tumult occupied, especially once the Vaal Triangle uprising in the last third of 1984 set off arguably the most intense sustained period of anti-apartheid activity. And Ted Kennedy was among the voices of conscience who translated those words into concrete action. Kennedy was not alone, nor was he even the most important driving force behind the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985. But it was one of hundreds of issues on which Kennedy took leadership in his long career. He truly was a giant in American political life.

Hamba kahle, Senator Kennedy.

(Belated Happy Birthday! This was my 1000th post for the FPA Africa Blog!)

Even as Jacob Zuma plans to head to Zimbabwe to try to channel negotiations and perhaps play the role of peacemaker the dynamic north of the Limpopo might be set to change radically — and not, as many might assume, for the better. President Robert Mugabe, the source of so many of Zimbabwe’s troubles, has apparently fallen ill and speculation is running rampant. ZANU-PF spokesmen have denied assertions of Mugabe’s illness, calling such speculation “rubbish.” Of course that merely lends an air of the Soviet Politburo in the 1980s for many observers who  would carry an umbrella if ZANU-PF observers assured them that it was sunny outside. (Generally speaking, consider me an umbrella bearer.)

Mugabe is probably fine, or at least as fine as an 86-year-old despot with prostate issues is likely to be. His meeting with Zuma tomorrow will likely go forward, and hopefully Zuma will walk the tightrope and send the right messages to Mugabe while at the same time keeping the wily old man listening.

But what would it mean were Mugabe to succumb to one malady or another?  There is already speculation that the military and security forces that have for so long kept Mugabe firmly entrenched have become the tail wagging the dog and that Mugabe’s continued hold on power comes only at the pleasure of the generals and not the other way around. Mugabe owes equally to the more anarchic threats of the so-called war veterans who have so long made up the backbone of Mugabe’s support. Worse yet, all of the men with guns — the police, the official military, and the increasingly shady war veterans — seemingly have antipathy toward Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the Prime Minister whose position in the coalition government has been tenuous from the outset. Given these facts, Mugabe’s death would almost certainly unleash paroxysms of violence, reprisal (no matter how Mugabe dies, some will likely try to pin it on Tsvangirai, the MDC and its supporters, and on Mugabe’s favorite target, “The West) and of course jockeying for position.

Even in the worst of times it is somewhat untoward to wish for someone’s death. But in the case of Mugabe, even if the sentiment makes sense, the outcome might, especially in the short run, prove disastrous for Zimbabweans already bent and beaten from the worst of Mugabe’s misrule. It would be a grim irony indeed if the old jackal died off and things became worse than ever.

Hopefully Jacob Zuma knows this and is preparing to charm and coerce and cajole Mugabe to plan for succession sooner than later. Catastrophe in Zimbabwe is bad for South Africa during the best of times, and given the economic instabilities that have been exacerbated by the recession these are far from the best of times, the last thing Zuma wants in the early stages of his presidency is for Zimbabwe to return to the nadir. Robert Mugabe is bad for Zimbabwe. The only thing that might be worse would be his death.

The new semester has begun and I have less than an hour before the first meeting of my graduate seminar in Modern African History. I have time to roll off a few stories that warrant some discussion:

Former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has been acquitted of using his country’s treasury like his own personal bank account. Most observers see the decision as a step back for those pushing for strong anti-corruption safeguards across the continent.

In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine Deborah Solomon had an interview with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. I have to admit, I am always befuddled when people argue that the world would be a more peaceful place if women were in charge. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir say “hello!”

Sao Tome: Mmmmmmm . . . . chocolate!

A number of African Union heads of state met at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on Monday to address global climate change. They came up with the frankly not unreasonable proposal to have the affluent western nations help fund their transition to greener energies to the tune of some $67 billion annually. I would, however, argue that tactically it might not be the best approach to label the hoped-for funds as “damages.”

Kenya has kicked off its new census process amidst controversy over the appropriateness of asking for ethnic labels. One does have to question the utility of such labels given recent Kenyan history.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has embraced a public report issued by scientists who have questioned - sometimes scathingly - several aspects of the country’s public health policies. Although it may be too early to be making such assessments, this seems like another clear break between Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki, whose administration rarely dealt with criticism well.

And for those of you who are interested, here is the reading list for my Modern Africa graduate seminar:

Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Africa Since 1800

Curtis Keim, Mistaking Africa

Tim Jeal, Stanley

M.E. Chamberlain, The Scramble For Africa

Giles Foden, Mimi and Toutou’s Big Adventure

David Birmingham, The Decolonization of Africa

Paul Nugent, Africa Since Independence

Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full

I’m going to wade into the controversy surrounding South African 800 meter runner and newly crowned world champion Caster Semenya. By now the story has made the rounds globally, with its equal parts prurience and controversy and politicization causing both track & field and Africa to draw attention in circles that ordinarily pay little attention to either. You’ve probably heard the story: Semenya came out of nowhere to win the World title, immediately people starting asking pointed questions about her gender because of her supposedly androgynous look, and voila, an international sporting scandal emerges, complete with charges of racism, questions about gender and sexuality, and conversations both scientific and pseudoscientific.

South Africans are outraged and compensate with a heroine’s welcome for Semenya as prominent supporters rally around her. Some in the United Nations are outraged. The New York Times does not help with some questionable language usage (scroll down to “questionable language in the NYT) that leaves some academics, you guessed it, outraged.

It seems to me that there are two separate questions that should be addressed here. There is the one that is drawing so much attention, the gender issue, which ties into questions of race. And then there are the realities of the possibility of whether Semenya used performance enhancing drugs.

On the first of these questions the critics have the most traction. A number of observers have invoked the image of Saartjie Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus” whose supposedly exotic sexuality was paraded throughout Britain, leaving Baartman to suffer as a freak show for English voyeurs. Although we want to be wary with historical analogies, this is the tenor of the current debate, and the discussion too often has placed undue emphasis on Semenya’s gender and sexuality largely because of how she looks. On this issue the critics are largely right and their concerns fit into a much larger historical, social, political, and cultural context.

There is another component, however. The reality is that in the hyper-competitive world of track and field, Semenya came out of nowhere to dominate a field of the world’s best women’s 800 meter runners. And so we would be remiss, given the realities of rampant PED usage across sports, not to ask the question — a question that is not asked not only of outlier performances such as this one, but of nearly any world class athlete. this is the world we inhabit, and it is the world Semenya entered when she became an elite athlete. It is possible that Semenya’s performance is legitimate, in which case many of us who love the sport are thrilled to be able to see her help transform her event much as we are with Usain Bolt’s dominance in the sprints. But world class athletes rarely come from nowhere. And so the best that Semenya can do would be to continue to run and to pass all of her drug tests. She is not the first woman to have a whispering campaign start about her gender — in large part because men have cheated the system by trying to pass as women — and she will not be the last. And keep in mind also that many of her most vocal skeptics will come from within the realm of world-class middle distance running, where her competitors will be asking the same questions. And her competitors are women from all over the world, including from Africa. There is certainly a gender issue at stake here as there may well be a racial aspect. But let us not pretend that asking about PED’s when an outlier performance such as Semenya’s happen is in and of itself in any way either racist or sexist given the nature of contemporary sport.

Two examples from South Africa of people getting ahead of themselves:

Some South Africans, including Local Organizing Committee chair Irvin Khoza, fear that South Africans are not catching World Cup fever. This strikes me as a pretty groundless concern. I was in South Africa during the Confederations Cup and saw plenty of spirit and came to the conclusion that the country is going to do just fine as World Cup hosts. But what does Khoza want from South Africans at this stage, some ten months before the tournament opens? The typical South African can be both excited about the prospects of 2010 and can go on with their lives in the interim. The country is dealing with a recession, food prices have reached record highs, people have other things going on (including the just-completed track and field world championships and the ongoing successes of Springbok rugby) and probably see no need publicly to wave the flag for the World Cup. When Khoza says “Every street, every corner, you must feel it. You must feel that the show is in town” he may be right, but surely that feeling is necessary during the actual events, and not ten months prior. And as Derek Carstens, the LOC marketing manager points out, resources are finite and timing matters, and he plans to begin the real rollout for the event in December. This is a non-story from all I can tell.

Meanwhile, members of the ANC have begun calling for Jacob Zuma to become a two-term president of both his party and the country. While this is to be expected, is it not a bit early to be talking about a second five-year term for Zuma, who has yet to complete his fourth month as the country’s president?

At the Council on Foreign Relations Bronwyn Bruton, a CFR International Affairs Fellow in residence, argues that the United States needs to ensure stability in Ethiopia as part of its strategy for dealing with the crisis in Somalia, where rebels just rejected a plea for peace during Ramadan. The interconnectedness of regional politics in Africa makes dealing with specific crises — which seems to be the West’s main approach to dealing with Africa — all the more difficult, but also makes understanding the nuances of differences in Africa all the more important to understand.

The good news: Nigerian rebel leaders from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) followed through on their agreement to hand over weapons this weekend in exchange for an amnesty from the government.

The bad news: Not all of the rebels agreed, and at least one faction of MEND not only rejected the offer but promised to keep on fighting. Naturally this faction is the most worrisome because all it takes is a small number to make the actions of a large number invalid. And if the faction follows through on its promise, it is hard to imagine the Nigerian government being confident in taking action merely against the intransigent few.