Africa

At The American: A Magazine of Ideas Marian L. Tupy has a perceptive piece on the stark differences between Botswana and Zimbabwe. Tupy’s conclusion is a bit prosaic: “It turns out that much of the difference stems from the degree of freedom that each populace enjoys.” (Really? It turns out that way, does it? Well I’ll be.) 

(And that is not the only dubious conclusion – The American is a product of the American Enterprise Institute which elevates liberal economics to the status of a religion. I generally support liberal economics, but Tupy seems gratuitously close to asserting the free market as a monocausal factor that explains the countries’ divergent paths. For her “freedom” seems to be characterized by a fairly narrow conception of market economics. She also seems happy to take on a Marxist straw man that reduces the complexities of post-independence Africa.)

But banalities of interpretation asideTupy does a nice job of telling  a tale of two countries and the article is very much worth reading. 

This week nine nominees for ambassadorial posts to Africa stood before the United States Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. AllAfrica has the details on the nominees and their backgrounds. The posts to be filled include posts to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ghana, Liberia, Togo, Malawi, Zambia, Cape Verde, and Botswana.

There is lots of news and not much time for analysis, so enjoy these links on a range of issues:

At Pambazuka News Chido Makunike looks at the Complexities of Zimbabwe with special emphasis on the various political participants and their needs and desires. A little less elegantly — which is not to say any less accuratel — Binyavanga Wainaina at the Mail & Guardian compares Robert Mugabe to a haemorrhoid, arguing, “He is not Aids, cancer, leukemia or malaria — those things that can kill you.” While Wainaina’s larger argument stands, the fact remains that Mugabe can, of course, “kill you,” especially if you are the opposition. One assumes that the coming weeks, and possibly months, will not be without their Mugabe-backed killings.

IRIN reveals how Botswana has shut down cross-border fuel sales to Zimbabwe and also has a story on how Amnesty International’s report on human rights abuses in Somalia barely “scratch the surface.”  the latter story might provide another example of how Zimbabwe’s neighbors are, however belatedly, increasingly fed up with Mugabe’s regime. Meanwhile the Somali government, or what amounts to the Somali government, predictably denies the report even as most civil society groups argue that the report is insufficient in revealing the true extent of the Somali crisis. My money is on the civil society groups being correct.

In Kenya many refugees are afraid to return home, fearing that violence may resume. Cautious optimism aside, for those who were caught up in the post-election maelstrom the healing process will almost inevitably be slow and may never be complete.

Finally, in this grab-bag of not-so-cheery news, it appears that more than a third of anti-malarial drugs tested in six cities across sub-Saharan Africa failed quality tests. Malaria does not draw the attention that AIDS (rightly) gets in Africa, and yet it is every bit as pervasive and deadly.