South Africa's Political Playground

Today the Council on Foreign Relations' "Africa in Transition" Blog published the second of my pieces on South African politics, "South Africa's Political Playground." It was an honor to be able to contribute my thoughts and I especially want to thank John Campbell, who oversees the blog, and Emily Mellgard of CFR who helped steer my work to publication.

The Economist v. The Economist

At the FPA Africa Blog I show how The Economist loses a debate against itself (and rather badly) on the issue of South African politics and the ANC. It's a thing to behold.

Julius Malema: Supernova?

Posting has been light lately. Yes there will be a Red Sox postmortem.

In the meantime, I wrote a bit about South Africa's volatile ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema at the Foreign Policy Association today. Go read that.

Me on African Politics (Or: There is No Love Like Self Love)

It's been a while since I posted. All of the usual excuses hold: Travel, family in town, laziness, the new semester is underway. Plus a new one: I am now President of the UTPB Faculty Senate, which has occupied an enormous amount of time already.

In any case, believe it or not I have been using my brain here and there. For example, I am quoted at length in an article in today's Christian Post about the Libya situation. Short version: we need to wait and see before we really know what it all means.

And ISN Insights has published my latest piece, "The ANC: Historical Irony on the Horizon?" In it I explore the current state of South African politics while wondering if President Jacob Zuma is going to face a bum's rush akin to the one that Thabo Mbeki faced in 2007-2008. Zuma was the greatest beneficiary of those events. Will he now find his presidency in jeopardy based on a similar wave of discontent?

Happy reading.

ISN Insights: The ANC (Self Indulgence Alert)

I am pleased to announce that I have begun a new regular gig writing about African affairs for the Zurich-based International Relations and Security Network (ISN). I will be contributing to their ISN Insights. My first piece for them, which is on the state of the African National Congress, has been posted.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.]

Affirmative Action and the ANC

The Cape Argus (via IOL) reports that a draft ANC document for the upcoming ANC conference in December is set to announce that the party is prepared to see the end of official affirmative action policies in the future.:

Although the party does not moot a sunset clause for the policy, it does acknowledge in its draft strategy and tactics document that the need for affirmative action "will decline in the same measure as all centres of power and influence become broadly representative of the country's demographics".

Of course just when that will happen is anyone's guess. We have not achieved such a goal in the United States after four decades and I still support affirmative action here because I do not even vaguely see the sort of progress that would lead to the end of afirmative policies of hiring or school admissions.

Yet it is telling that South Africans are already cognizant of this debate. The huge difference is demographic, of course. The "African" population (in which I count Indians/Asians and Coloureds as well) is the vast majority in a country in which the government is now overwhelmingly African. As a consequence, despite the fact that apartheid was still so recent and so rigidly oppressive, the rapid transformation into a democratic government means that the majority no longer holds power in ways that it continues to do so in the United States.

Still, the end of the need for affirmative action will likely be a long time in coming in South Africa. And this is fine -- I see no sense in hastily dismantling a policy that is so necessary and has accomplished so much good in a country still limping from apartheid injuries.