"Whats going on?"

Now - I don't pretend to understand anything about Middle Eastern politics or its deep roots in a tangled and bloody history .... and so I'm sure that my total bewilderment at how the current crisis has played out over the past fortnight and more .... is pretty common to most of us .... I just don't understand how the world seems to have stumbled into this unfolding hell ...

My particularly keen interest above and beyond my usual news-junkiness (aside from the obvious horror etc etc of course) is because Shashank was posted to the region with about 24 hours notice (on the very eve i might add of my visiting him in kenya .... and our big planned holiday with yatin to zanzibar .... dating a journalist is only for the very unflappable) ..... in his own words - he's been speeddating the airports of the middle east ..... egypt, cyprus, jordan, syria (it is amazing he has pages left in his passport) ... and now he's in beirut .... now i'm not going to scoop him a la yatin ... but save to say that he's bunkering down to be there for an indefinite while (this straight after 3 weeks in darfur) and he will certainly need to travel down to the south where the really scary action is ....

My take on this whole situation is obviously very naive ..... my experiences growing up in Saudi Arabia do not make me the most fervent supporter of arab causes .... but these sentiments at odds somewhat with my good Guardian-reader natural sympathies for palestine and lebanon ....

However irrespective of Israeli understandable fears and insecurities about its neighbours' intentions .... surely any normal average person must see that this full scale war against the people of Lebanon in an attempt to suppress Hizbollah cannot from any perspective or planet be seen as acceptable .... in the words of Fouad Sinoria the Lebanese PM - his country is being "cut to pieces ... and why should an Israeli tear be worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

Poor Lebanon .... only just recovering from a horrendous civil war ... finally trying to extricate itself from the clutches of its own neighbours machinations .... and coming to terms with the assasination of Rafik Harriri - the main architect of its renaissance ..... is now shattered once again .... according to the Economist .... more than 800,000 Lebanese are now internally displaced .... and between 400 - 650 killed (several times as many as Israel with incalcubly more infrastructure damage) ..... in a war that their nation did not start. And lets not even start to get into the first front of this war in Gaza.

Now you could say that some blame lies with the Lebanese - Hizbollah is undoubtedly a threat to Israel ..... and so their politicians ought to severe their links with the Syrian/Iranian backed "Party of God" (18 MPs in Lebanon) and that if Sinoria maintains his friendship with Nasrallah (and certainly refuses to condemn his actions) - then Israel can legitmately view Lebanon as a threat .... and it seems reasonable that Israel had to respond to the provocation of Hezbollah kidnapping its soldiers and lobbing rockets over the border ..... but can this ever really be a justification for such a disproportionate reaction against a nation? I just don't get it ... I can't understand .... and someone clever needs to explain it to me.

However ..... my real vitriol now is reserved for our own governments .... the governments that stopped the Security Council from condemning the Israeli bombing that killed 4 UN Observers .... the governments that between them scuppered calls for an immediate ceasefire at the Rome summit even when it was supported by all other parties present including the UN .... the governments who claim that they want to build a "sustainable ceasefire" (read - give you more time to destroy Hizbollah) ... and are fast losing all credibility amongst not just arab nations to be involved in a any form of peace process (whilst the french - ha! imagine! - seem to be emerging smelling of roses ....)



And really - even if we knew we could expect no better from George Bush ..... I had hoped that Tony Blair at least would show a modicum of the decency for which we initially elected him ..... do any of us even remember the party who gave us hopes of an "ethical foreign policy" when they were first elected? .... and now the ignominy .... we let the yanks stop their weapon-delivery flights in our country en route to israel whilst condi talks of sustainable ceasefires! ..... truly this whole shoulder-to-shoulder performance of Tony Blair's is getting tired ... we're all over it ..... and you have to wonder just what it is that Dubya holds over him .... Sir Stephen Wall wrote a great editorial in the New Statesman and the Guardian this week - warning that we must not let the US set our moral compass .... and I agree .... we need to stop outsourcing our foreign policy to the yanks ... and soon.


PS 1 Interestingly - I just saw a clip on CNN showing how some evangelical groups in America are saying that this conflict was predicted in the Bible (Revelations) - and how this Holy War is the start of the return of Jesus Christ as King .... and thus Israel should be supported at all costs ... I'm speechless .... someone please explain ...

PS 2 Shashank's experiences there so far ... he says have made him realise just how much worse it is here in any African conflict than there in the Middle East .... he said the scenes in Cypus with all the evacuees were really just like any hotel lobby in Nigeria .... and Chad even in peacetime (let alone Darfur) was far more horrific than anything he's seen there so far ..... whereas - whilst he's been away .... here on the dark continent we have historic elections in DRC .... Somalia and Ethiopia appear to be approaching their own Holy War ..... Liberia's capital got water and street lights for the first time in 15 years ..... and millions have died from diseases that could have been prevented, cured or treated with the cash frittered away on bombs, rockets and the like .... and the poor readers of McClatchey/Knight Ridder newspapers won't have the chance to read about it all ....

Happy Birthday to Me ... again and again ....

I was really lucky this year to have my birthday whilst I was at home in london .... and so i saw and was suitably cherished by my folks .... and got to see and celebrate with all my mates (thank you so much to everyone that came to the Sochu lounge .... i had such a wonderful night!) .... a real luxury for me given my recent global trottings ....

However ... my new friends in south africa wanted to celebrate for me too .... and so my lovely lovely friend peter decided to throw me a champagne brunch .... and yes i know this means that i have now been celebrating my birthday for over a month (although there is NOTHING wrong with having a brithday month .... and no it isn't an only child thing) .... and if he was honest .... it was all really it was to show off his new champagne flutes and candelabra .... (and yes he is - as peter pan on ice skates .... but every girl needs a gbf ....)

And so we met in his predictably fabulous flat at 11am armed with capetown-tastic food, champagne in the all new beautiful flutes and great jugs of bloody mary .... it was 27 degrees out on the deck (welcome to winter in cape town) .... and life seemed perfect ....

As the afternoon wore on - the sun kept blazing .... and the mimosas/champage and bloody marys hit the spot .... idah was teaching us to dance afro-style ..... everyone seemed awfully witty and clever ..... several of us had to pop out for more and more bottles ..... and if we broke a few glasses - well - peter was very understanding .....

however as the hours went on ... and the bottle pile grew .... it became clear it had all hit the spot too well ... and by 5 (we started at 11) .... after 12 bottles of champagne and 3 bottles of vodka between 10 people (not all of whom stayed the distance) ..... me and half the party were revisiting our brunch (including one nameless person who vomited over the balcony onto the white awning and the passers-by below .... yuck!) .....

rather embarrassingly for me i then promptly fell asleep on the settee .... stonkingly boxed .... and woke up an hour later ... in time to see england crash out of the world cup on penalities .... not sure if it was the alcohol ... or my latent patriotism ... but i spent the rest of the night slumped and mourning all english performances of the evening ....

So i know that my african experiences seem rather different to Shashank's (especially his recent flirtation with the darfur diet and men with guns) .... but .... anyhow it just goes to show that just because you turn 31 ... you don't have to be all grown up ....

It all seemed so fabulous at the start ....



And Peter was the perfect host ....



But then things started to get messy ....



And we went from fabulous to flat-out - how the mighty are fallen .... (in fact Idah did fall ... from the bed to the floor .... and still didn't wake up...)





And the party resumes after our "naps" ....

Crime and Punishment ... To Live and Die in SA

A couple of days ago two of my colleagues here were violently attacked.

One was walking out with a visitor from the US on Durban beach at sunrise .... surrounded by dozens of surfers, holiday makers and even policemen ... when they were beset upon by two youths with knives who kicked, punched and stabbed her .... apparently they looked as though they had been sniffing glue and so didn't listen to her screams that she wasn't carrying anything of value .... and she finally managed to fight them off .... the poor visitor screamed herself hoarse trying to attract attention ... but in this country everyone is too scared to help ....

So because they were getting stitched up and bandaged .... they ended up being late to meet another colleague (a black South African woman) ... who was waiting for them outside a shopping centre in the nicest part of Durban ... a place where even a scaredy-cat like me would walk to ..... but as she waited ... she was held up by two men who held knives to her throat as they took everything she had on her .... phone, keys, jewellery, money etc ....

When the others finally turned up to pick her up .... she wasn't at the meeting place and was uncontactable ... and so a full scale search ensued .... and she was finally found terrified at a police station ..... this on the background of her husband having been carjacked and stabbed just a couple of weeks ago .... he was missing for over 24 hours .... and eventually found unconcious in a hospital .....

Many of you know that I was mugged at knife point with a colleague on my very first day here .... luckily I didn't have anything on me to even give the guy .... and since then I've been accosted in my own driveway by two guys .... and even had my car (rental) stolen from my own drive as well .... (by the way ... please please please don't tell any of this to my mum .... you know she would make me get on the next plane to london) .... I haven't dressed nicely or worn jewellery for months .... and walking home from the pub at night .... in fact walking anywhere has become something i dream about wistfully (ha! who would have thought!)

Now when I first arrived ... I was determined not to become like so many foreigners and white South Africans .... for whom discussion of crime levels is like talking about the weather to the english .... they all live in huge houses behind high walls with wire and armed security .... keeping the "black menace" at bay .... but it is true that everyone here has a story .... they say in Johannesburg everyone knows someone who has been shot ... I've lived all over the world .... in places much poorer and deprived .... and yet I've never felt such an undercurrent of violence and tension as we do here .... now we all understand that the history of this country has deeply influenced income disparity and opportunity ..... but my (perhaps naive) attitude is rob me blind if you have to eat .... just please don't murder or rape me as well ....

But the final straw in a country where 51 murders and 151 rapes are reported DAILY (and those are only the ones that get to be reported) .... was the safety and security minister recently telling Parliament:-

"They can continue to whinge until they're blue in the face, be as negative as they want to, or they can simply leave this country so that all of the peace-loving South Africans, good South African people who want to make this a successful country, can continue with their work."

Can you imagine ANY minister ANYWHERE keeping his job after telling his people that if they don't like the crime - they can just emigrate?! It shows that in this country ... even the fight against crime is still prejudiced by colour .... its seen as a white whinge topic ... even though the majority of crime is against black people ....

This has sparked all manner of debates at to what kind of responsibility the SA government is taking over the levels of violence here .... and some people have taken the matter into their own hands through an internet site ... and tried to highlight to the international tourists the realities and dangers of travelling around here ... and even casting doubt over whether it will be safe to have the 2010 World Cup here ..... a real kick to the balls as it were ....

Welcome to the new South Africa.

All Hail the Black Stars ....

Africa is football-crazy ... its football mad. Like the old song goes - this football it has taken away the little bit of sense Africa had.

There's always a game on ... at every street corner ... in any bit of bare land in a township ... kids with no shoes ... often no real ball ... playing with tin cans .... or bundles of rags .... and every kid wants to grow up and be David Beckham ....

Even in normal times .... if you go to the gym here in cape town - there are five tellies showing every bloody league match in england ... with the spanish and italian leagues on the other channels just for good measure .... (and yes .... for those of you sniggering ... yes - i have purchased a gym membership ... and yes - i never go .... but it is just the perfect encapsulation of the new South Africa to see all the skinny white people running on the treadmills after work cos they're too scared to be outside after dark ... and then jumping into their cars to drive home .... passing in their wake all the black gym cleaning staff who have to run home cos all the death-wagon taxis stopped at sundown) ....

Anyhow .... given that general obsession is the starting point for the nation .... you can imagine that the world cup brings the whole country to a standstill .... the matches are on 24/7 ... spinning on a loop .... everyone shuts up shop, stops work and the bars/restaurants become almost american in having a telly in each corner ....

What's interesting is the team loyalties of the various racial groups here in SA (since of course EVERYTHING here comes down to race) .... the blacks all wanted the black african teams to win .... the coloreds and indians support brazil .... and the whites cheer doggedly for england or holland .... even though they've all been africans for generations ....

And its not just south africa .... the obsession is transcontinental .... there have been great articles about refugees in darfur paying a week's earnings to watch games in a make-shift viewing tent ....
and in somalia - only the banning of world cup games has provided the impetus for protests against the islamists who have taken over mogadishu (although sad news today about those who braved the ban) ..... football widows clubs have spouted all over nairobi in kenya .... and the President sanctioned a national holiday in Togo just to celebrate qualifying ...

And so it could only be football (for the first time since I've been here) that could make South Africans at last feel part of Africa at large (the South Africans do like to think of themselves as a cut above the rest .... and people even say they're going abroad when they come to Cape Town) .... and its all thanks to the Black Stars of Ghana ....

Every game they played - we all watched breathless and holding thumbs (its a south african thing ...) ... we cheered ourselves hoarse at the game against the USA .... and we all KNOW that the only reason they lost against brazil was because they were playing against 12 brazilians ....

Now everyone wants to be Steven Appiah .... and due to Ghana as well as the Ivory Coast, Angola, Togo and Tunisia .... African football can hold its head up high .... bring on South Africa 2010 ....

Celebrating Freedom ...

Just a quick note to say happy 4th of july to all the yanks out there .... i might even have some cheap burgers and nasty beer in your honour (but just think of what you could have been feasting on if you'd kept european) ....

keep that freedom marching y'all ....