Graceland (and its Controversies) at 25

Over at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog I have a piece on Paul Simon's and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Graceland at 25 in which I explore the controversies (re-examined in a new documentary that sadly I have not seen) over that album in light of the cultural boycott of Apartheid South Africa.

A Prodigal Returns

I keep promising I'm going to write more at dcat. And then I don't. So here's something I wrote at the FPA Africa Blog on the Senegalese elections.

I am going to be returning as a prodigal son to Ohio University this weekend. I am on the program for a conference on Sports and Community Building in Africa and the Global South. Here are the conference details -- track me down and we'll get a drink or grab a bite.

The Road to Carolina

If you're going to be anywhere near the Research Triangle in North Carolina this weekend, I'd encourage you to swing by the South East Regional Seminar in African Studies (SERSAS) and the South East Africanist Network (SEAN) Conference. The main program will take place on Saturday at the University of North Carolina's Fedex Global Education Center. The conference theme is "Border Crossings, Migrations, and Interventions," but panels will deviate from those themes. I'm on the panel and would love to meet any readers who might be in the area.

On Travel

I've taken this trip on the Okavango Delta on mokoros. In fact it makes up one of my favorite memories, especially when we arrived at our chosen campsite to discover it being ransacked by two giant bull elephants.

I tend to be a bit skeptical of most travel writing, especially that about Africa, as most of the genre tends to veer toward buttressing various hoary cliches about Africa. Nonetheless, I also think there is a place for even the most boosterish travel writing -- that is, the kind you find in a typical weekend edition of the newspaper that basically is a sales job for travel.

Some time ago inveterate travel writer Paul Theroux (with whose writings I tend to have a love-hate relationship) wrote an essay in the New York Times' Sunday travel section titled "Why We Travel." I think "we" travel for many reasons. Every time I get the chance to return to Africa it is always driven by work, but even when I go for work, I'm not going to pretend that I work fifteen hours a day. Most of my time is devoted to the simple pleasures of travel. Seeing old friends and returning to familiar haunts as well as always seeking out the new.

[Crossposted]

Off to NYE Shenanigans

Over at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog I have posted my annual "Year in Review."

I am traveling to New England today for eleven days of the Boston-New Hampshire access punctuated by New Year's shenanigans in Boston, a few days in the old hometown, and the American Historical Association annual meeting in Boston, where I am on a panel on the Freedom Rides that will take place before a showing of Freedom Riders. If you're in the Boston area, do swing on by. I'll even sign this if you have a copy. (Prediction: My shamelessness will extend into 2011!)

Happy New Year, everyone!

A Tale of Two Elections

ISN Insights has published my latest piece, "A Tale of Two Elections," which looks at the crisis averted in Guinea and the one broiling in Ivory Coast.

In Addis Ababa

I am in Addis Ababa (see here for more), have not slept in 40 hours and since my hotel room seems to have ESPN International, which is supposed to have the Celtics-Lakers game overnight (it's after midnight now and I just got to my room), it looks like I'll roll out of here tomorrow morning (5:00 wake up!) on virtually no sleep. And then of course I get into Joburg with just hours to spare before the South Africa-Mexico game.

In the meantime, you might know this guy. You might think he's me. (He's not me.)

At the FPA Africa Blog (Self Indulgence Alert!)

I've been very busy at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog. Most recently I've taken on Jendayi Frazer's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed and otherwise have been covering the continent as best as one man with an internet connection and a few ideas can do. Please check it out.

At the Africa Blog: Self Indulgence Alert

In case you are not a regular visitor, you should know that I have been very busy at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog. One of the huge benefits of a fellowship such as this one is that it gives me the breathing room to do a whole range of writing, including blogging, short-form pieces and essays, as well as scholarly work. The Africa blog, in particular, has been a beneficiary of this time. (Although I've been as busy with dcat as at any time in recent memory too).

You also should check out the main FPA Blogs page that consolidates the work of all of the organization's bloggers. We are the largest network of foreign affairs blogs on the web (or so they tell us!) and our readership has been huge and growing. Even if you do not always check out the Africa Blog, bookmark the main page to get as good an overview of a range of global issues as is available anywhere.

At the Africa Blog

I've been busy busy busy over at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog. I hope you'll go over and take a look at my commentary on African affairs ranging from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and across the continent, with lots and lots of South African politics as a focus. South Africa will hold elections later this month, and the country has not been in this kind of political flux since 1994. I hope you'll check in regularly, bookmark the Africa Blog, and put it on your blogroll if you blog.

At the FPA Africa Blog (Self Indulgence Alert)

Just a quick note to direct you toward the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog where I have been busy covering a whole host of events ranging from Somalia to Guinea to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and beyond, and of course lots of coverage of the Zimbabwe crisis and South African politics. Please check it out.

On The Road: Self Indulgence Alert

I am hitting the road for the next ten days or so. This weekend I'll be attending the 123rd annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York, where I hope to see this for the first time. Then I will be heading to Washington, DC, to participate in the 2009 Jack and Anita Hess Seminar for Faculty (pdf) at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. (My own perspective and connection is the issue of genocide in Africa, an issue about which I have written a little and taught a bit more.) As always, I'll post as I can.

The Darfur Crisis (Self Indulgence Edition)

The Foreign Policy Association has published a lengthy piece that I have been working on for quite a while, "Never Again," Again: The Darfur Crisis. It is also available in .pdf, with footnotes, here.

The Opening paragraph:

The pattern is relentless, bleak, frustrating, and odiously predictable. The leadership of Sudan and its murderous minions engage in brazen and cynical acts of murder and foment chaos, either directly or by proxy. The rest of the world responds tepidly if it responds at all. Sudan oversteps, the world criticizes, hinting of ramifications to come. Sudan backs off just long enough for the goldfish-length attention span of the western powers to turn their attentions elsewhere. And then the self-preserving thugs in Khartoum return almost immediately to their cruel and rapacious ways.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.]

A Tale of Two Countries: Self-Indulgence Alert

The Foreign Policy Association has published my latest piece, "A Tale of Two Countries: Change and Crisis in Zimbabwe and South Africa." Writing commentary on volatile events taking place in real time is always fraught with peril, and in this case I wish I had continued my consistently more pessimistic outlook on Zimbabwe, but on the whole I hope it says something about this historic moment in both countries.

South African Politics

I have written some of my observations about South African politics at the Foreign Policy Association's South Africa Blog and Africa Blog. Please do check one of them out if you get a chance.

Swakopmund

Where the desert meets the ocean and Germany meets Africa you'll find Swakopmund, one of my favorite little niches.

[The New York Times]

And now The New York Times has to go ruin this secret gem by telling you all about it. If it makes a difference, and I doubt that it will, I'd advise you not to go because I got robbed in a big way there some time ago. (I'd go back in a heartbeat. But don't tell your friends.)

Defying Belief

Recent revelations that Nelson Mandela is still on the United States' terrorist watch list (a list he never belonged on in the first place) does not exactly inspire confidence in America's handling of its foreign policy, its approach to terrorism, or its grasp of African policy, does it?

[Crossposted at the Foreign Policy Association's South Africa Blog.]

Self Indulg . . . Ah, You Know The Drill: ASMEA in DC

I am in my old stomping grounds of Washington, DC for the first meeting of a promising new organization, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. On Saturday I will be presenting a paper on a project on Darfur on which I have been working for quite some time.

Typical of a lot of my work, this project is not quite scholarly enough for academics and may well prove too scholarly for the general public. By no means am I an expert of Darfur or Sudan, but as someone who writes about Africa I have been asked to contribute to this inaugural conference and was asked some time ago to write a piece on this nightmare scenario. In May I will present a more advanced (I hope) version of this project at a Sudan Studies meeting in Tallahassee and when all is said and done maybe I'll have something worth saying in a couple of venues about the human rights catastrophe that we have helped to countenance through benign neglect and practiced malfeasance.

Ego Run Amok: More Self Indulgence, Zimbabwe Commentary Edition

I finally received the file from my Cape Argus op-ed (pdf -- it's the middle article on the page) from last month on the Zimbabwe election. I was wrong on some stuff, right on some, I overplayed the role of Simba Makoni, underplayed that of Morgan Tsvangirai, and am as surprised as anyone that we still await the outcome, which I still imagine will come down to Robert Mugabe stealing the election.

Zim at the Africa Blog -- Self Indulgence Alert!

Perhaps this will help explain my relative silence here at dcat. I've been pretty occupied with the situation in Zimbabwe, in which rumors prevail over facts. My hopes are high if muted for change there, but my cynicism remains the prevailing force. Please go read if you have any interest whatsoever.