In the midst of death ... life persists ....

I've been meaning to write something about the horrors of the mumbai massacre for days .... but find myself constantly bombarded by stories, op-eds and frankly conflicting emotions ...

Day 1 was filled with such overwhelming fury as i'd never known .... even greater oddly enough than after the London 7/7 bombings .... i'm not reading too much into that (big box cearly filled with too much for a quick post) .... Day two - insatiable need to keep up to date with whatever was happening moment by moment .... By Day three - horror and overwhelming grief .... which has slowly abated to sadness, respect, a need to mourn and remember .... an inexplicable pride in the armed services and also the hotel workers and people who sacrificed themselves or showed great courage to help others .... and huge relief that there have been few repercussions within India ..... and that anger rightly has focussed on the fatuous ineffectiveness of Indian politicians and the ticking timebomb that is Pakistan ...

i've been devouring blogs and articles trying to get more of a handle on what really went wrong .... and what ought to be done ....

Old heroes of mine such as Arundhati Roy seem shrill in their "liberalness" .... somehow i can't bring myself to agree with her polemic ... favourite novelists like Amit Choudhuri have provided nostalgia ... and Shashi Tharoor political platitudes ...

I'm going to the Frontline club tonight to hear some British journos including ones who were there ... give their insight .... so more after that ... but I'm attaching is Karsh Kale's tribute to mumbai ... which has most tapped into the emotions that i'm feeling but can't put words to ...

I heart David Remnick .... The Joshua Generation

Despite a long love for the New Yorker .... i do credit my ex boyfriend for really introducing me to the genius that is David Remnick ....

This piece in the New Yorker on race and the Obama campaign is typical of his gentle lyrical insightful writing .... a brilliant article on the rise of the new "Joshua Generation" ....

I'm not kidding - i think if i could be anybody - i think i'd want to be like him ...

Below is a link to the article being discussed on MSNBC's Morning Joe ...

Hitchens Opines: good solid sense ....

i LOVE that Christopher Hitchens (a true maverick) keeps getting wheeled out this election ... he's succinct, insightful, untheatrical and unapologetic (for his perpetual state of hungoverness) .... and lets honest - everything just sounds cleverer in a British accent ....

And the walls came tumbling down ....

I know I know ... its the eve of the biggest election i've known ... and i'm still blogging about Africa? And not even about the crisis in Congo?

But actually - i think this story is also going to be cataclysmic .... after months of rancour - the ANC has finally splintered - and this could mark the dawn of a new political landscape ....

The SADC (South African Democratic Congress) held its first convention in Johannesburg this weekend led by ex ANC defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota .... and has been heralded by the other opposition parties (importantly - none of whom are majority black).

"The once proud liberation movement has lost its way. The values, the visions and the ideals of the struggle have been forgotten ..."

Its a sentiment I've heard echoed increasingly in SA, and especially so since the ANC ignored the quagmire of sleaze and controversy surrounding Jacob Zuma .... and as the political megalith that is the ANC struggles to maneouvre itself from revolutionary movement to middle-of-road party of economic development and engine of the continent.

Scarily however - it seems as though some of this split is along tribal lines. The worst violence at the end of the apartheid era was not white on black .... but instead black-on-black in the notorious "township wars". Zulu against Xhosa. Beautifully but tragically depicted in the great memoir - The Bang Bang club (which btw is one of the most powerful books i've ever read)

It is of course too early for doom and gloom apocalyptic predictions. This may truly herald the dawn of multiparty democracy in South Africa ... and as the great black hope for the continent we can but hope.

But the lessons learned from Rwanda, Congo, Kenya amongst a long list of others serve as a sombre warning. One of the advantages of the ANC was that it had no obvious tribal affiliation (although each appointment is made with exacting racial precision for the correct ethnic recipe) - and the rape trial of Zuma last year showed what tensions simmer close to the surface.

It would be too unfair if after the evil of apartheid .... and then the scourge of HIV/AIDS .... that SA could then riven by political and ethnic strife. The imcomparable Archbishop Tutu once said of Mandela "How God must love South Africa to have given us such a priceless gift".... I pray for more Mandelas and Tutus so that this wonderful country can negotiate its course to a real multi-party democracy and ensure that the struggle hasn't all been in vain ....

STOP! Karmacy ....

Check the new video from Karmacy .... listen to the lyrics (even the part about the next generation of British colonisation) .... and go buy the album "Wooden Bling" ... its everything that you'd want from your musicians ... intelligent, fun, soulful and totally fresh .... i love these guys ...

Rock the Vote .... Obama '08

It must be even colder for you ....

.... said my cab driver to me last night on the way home when we were chatting ubiquitously about the weather (i mean really - what else do we do here in england ....)

I wasn't sure what to say in response .... but I decided rather than just laugh politely and take it ... i thought i'd maybe try explaining that brown as i am ... i was actually from here ...

"Well ..." i said brightly .... "I was born and bought up in Birmingham - so I do know cold and misery ...." (trying to keep it non-polemical) ....

"Yeah .... but your blood is still different innit? .... i mean - you can't get away from that love no matter what or where you were born. Its thinner or summink. See - I have a coloured mate ... and he and his misssus have to keep the heating on all the time .... even in the summer .... its your blood darling - its always going to be foreign" ....

I gave up. And talked about wanting to get home to have a nice cup of tea ....

But it reminded me of a line from the sublime classic "How to be an Alien" which someone bought my dad when he first came to this country in 1965 ....

"It is a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English."

Super Gordon!

According to Paul Krugman in the NYT Op Ed section this am .... Gordon Brown did good .... in fact he did exceptionlly good ....

"Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system? ..... the Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and decisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own."

Wow. He does make the point (quite a lot) that the UK is small fry on the economic stage as compared to the colossus that is the US .... but somehow our little nation stood tall and persuaded other world leaders to act not on ideology .... but instead to to look insightfully yet decisively into the abyss ...and actually do the right thing .....

The Guardian is less adulatory .... but flattering nonetheless .... holding its breath for a Labour revival .... and for a Brownian renaissance ....

As my mum would say .... silent waters run deep ....



Addendum: Just read that Krugman (of Princeton and the NYT column cited above was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics today ... so he must know what he is talking about ....)

Going for an English ....

No reason for this ... just reminescing after today's earlier post about how sublime GGM was ....

Curry is King .... or The Bhuna Bailout ....

Such is the craziness of this current end of days situation that all the papers today are carrying the story about how Gordon Brown went to bed early last night safe in the knowledge that the bank bailout would be smooth .... since Alistair Darling ordered a £245 curry takeaway from his favourite curryhouse for the Masters of the Universe that met with him in order to end this descent into chaos ....

As a proud card-carrying brown person ... i'm rather tickled that poppadoms and pickles were the sustenance for our 'saviours' .... no longer is it the beer and sandwiches of old Labour ... the caviar and chapampagne of the Tories .... or even fish and chips of the BNP .... chicken tikka masala - surely britain's greatest export - is the the flavour of the moment .... the stuff that society runs on when the going gets tough ....

I can only think of the classic Goodness Gracious Me sketch when the uncle claims everthing as Indian ....



But sadly ... it all leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth (i'm loving this terrible punning) .... since the Labour spin machine just makes us wary that we're being purposefully manipulated into thinking
a) they're just normal people like any of us .... or
b) oooh look how multiculturally pc they are - please angry brown people don't hate us for branding you all as terrorists.... or ....
c) the discussions to avert the apocalypse took the form of a rather amiable curry on a kitchen table with Darling being in complete control and not a knife-edge debate on the coming of hell - oh-how-very-quirky-British-stiff-upper-lip-and-not-like-all-that-fuss-the-americans-made we are ... (actually the last one i rather like ... i mean really ... how nice and civilised that our politicians sorted the mess out over dinner and not with some nasty melodrama)

Of course .... it may just be that our Chancellor thinks best with a naan and tarka dal inside him ... and who am i to disagree ....

Naturally the papers are going wild about this tasty little tidbit ..... Hardeep Singh Kohli in the Guardian today is calling it the Bhuna Bailout in a rather saccharine coquettish piece comparing the banks and building societies to the nation's favourite dishes ...

To which one wit has commented ....

King Prawn Rogan Josh : £12.50
Poppadums : £5
Lamb curries : £40
Chicken curries : £30
Tandoori rotis : £20
The knowledge that you can distract the taxpayers with talk of curry while shafting them for £50 billion : Priceless
There are some things which money can't buy. For everything else there is the Guardian.

Amen.

Hitchens: piece in Slate

http://www.slate.com/id/2201622/

Hence the interview on Morning Joe ....

He argues in essence that we ought to exploit the opium harvest in Afghanistan to make actual opiate-bsed drugs (rather than funding Turkey to do this) ... and so stop the profits being diverted to the Taliban/Al Quaeda ....

At last intelligent practical thoughts about Afghanistan ... and the realisation that the strategies of Iraq cannot be exported there ....

Still .... could the yanks ever go for the War on Terror over the War on Drugs?

Christopher Hitchens kicking ass ....

Christopher Hitchens ... love him or loathe him (but i frankly adore him ...) .... has to be the only person who can turn up clearly hungover (if not still drunk) and yet still put on an acerbically brilliant performance ... even if you don't agree with him ....

He was masterful yesterday morning talking about the need for new thoughts on Afghanistan/Pakistan and the utter offensiveness of Sarah Palin ....

Maybe its just the effect of the british accent ... but i think he rocks ...

Tony meets Jon ....

My hero met - well - an ex-hero .... Tony Blair on Jon Stewart facing the "smiling inquisition" of the Daily Show ... much more serious than most Stewart encounters ....

I really wanted Blair to really come out and show himself ... to explain ... to redeem hismelf ....but there were few insights (except that he genuinely like Bush ... and that even he was a little surprised about the carnage after the invasion .... but that he still believes he did right)....he was classy if a little humourless, wary but of course very intelligent ... props to him for actually facing the questioning but I was left feeling even more disappointed in my ex-PM than ever ....

Part 1



Part 2

Who reads the papers? The daddy of political comedy ....

"Global warming is just God hugging us closer" ..... the genius of SNL ....

How can a government murder its people?

The Guardian yesterday ran an incredible video piece filmed and bravely smuggled out of the country by a police officer .... for the first time we see the vote rigging under coercion by a "war veteran", the shocking treatment of MDC politicians .... and the brutality of daily life in Zimbabwe today ...

Shepherd Yuda driven by the violence and despair all around him, risked everything to courageously film undercover ....



"I had never seen that kind of violence before. The impact has left a lot of orphans; it has left a lot of people displaced. You cannot expect that from your government. You expect that from a rebel group. How can a government that claimed to be democratically elected kill its people, murder its people, torture its people?"

Earlier this week Matt Frei, of the BBC, wrote an great op-ed piece warning against the new axis of impunity - Burma, Darfur, Zimbabwe amongst others ....

If we want to regain any moral standing or legitimacy ... we must show our outrage now and not let this become the age of non-intervention .... for example Frei urges us to check whom our banks support (e.g. Barclays) and to flex our protest muscles collectively and individually .... otherwise what Shepherd says about Zimbabwe may become reality for more and more of us ....

"This country has become a boiling pot where only stones can survive ..."

Anarchy Under the UK

South Africa burns ....

I've blogged before about the blatant and violent xenophobia that exists in South Africa against other black africans ..... resentment against malawians, mozambiqans and especially zimbabweans (not to mention congolese, nigerians, somalis etc) .... who are economic and political refugees in SA ...... who despite being from countries that sheltered and supported the ANC during the dark days of apartheid enduring bombs, assasinations and often full scale wars for their stance .... and despite the fact that most of South Africa's wealth is built on migrant labour in the mines etc .... are now not similarly welcomed .... resented for allegedly stealing jobs (foreigners do have a rather justified reputation for working harder) and ironically for crime (again see post in July for the ludicrousness of one of the world's most violent countries blaming crime issues on outsiders ....) .....

The images coming out of Jozi this past few days eerily mirror old pictures from the late 80s when the township battles raged and the struggle against apartheid was at its peak .... Panzers storming into the townships .... shacks torched .... policemen engaged in running gun battles with mobs .... and collaborators or members of opposition parties (except now its foreigners) necklaced and burnt to death ..... the only difference this time around is that more of the policemen are black ....

The dream of the Rainbow Nation appears to be in tatters .... in a great Comment is Free piece in the Guardian yesterday - Sean Jacobs lists the hard truths ..... South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world .... for an increasingly youthful population (78% black), only 42 of every 100 South Africans have a job ..... 49% are deemed poor (with monthly household income below R2,400 or £170) ..... approx 15% are HIV positive ..... and despite all the country's wealth and infrastructure - 24% of homes have no electricity, 32 % no tap water, 69% no hot water supply, and R21 (£1.40) of every R100 (£6.80) they earn, they spend on food ..... emanicipation from white rule has not brought with it emancipation from poverty ....

Of course - its no justification for the mindless and terrible violence and for the nasty racism underlying it .... many countries are poorer yet remain peaceful (e.g. Malawi) .... but it is true that in the 14-15 years since the ANC came to power .... only a small black elite has become incredibly rich and powerful ..... and although a black middle class is emerging .... the new regime has mostly failed to deliver for its own people and grassroots ....


Yet it is inconceivable that the south african people (well the blacks at any rate) will vote against the ANC .... Cosatu the labour union has always been critical of Mbeki ... and there are internal ANC rifts especially surrounding Zuma .... but the recent revolt by the Durban port workers aside ..... the poor and the desperate of South Africa won't revolt against its own party of revolution and independence .... and instead the anger is directed against foreigners .... and now we hear reports that Indians (brought to SA as indentured labourers generations ago) - are also being targetted .... a worrying sign and one we've seen with tragic consequences in other parts of Africa in the past ....

There is of course a progressive liberal South Africa - with a constitution based on UN Charter of Human Rights (including enshrining gay rights - the only African nation to do so) ..... but perhaps a society that was built on difference and brutalised for it will remain brutal for a long time yet to come ....

The Age of Terror

More of the beeb at its best. Incredible series on the evolution of terror ... this episode is particularly poignant on the Nairobi/Dar american embassy bombings ..... somewhat overshadowed at the time by the Lewinsky saga .... but now can clearly be seen as Bin Laden's declaration of war .... a fantastic piece of journalism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b6wd4.shtml?q=terror&start=1&scope=iplayersearch&go=Find+Programmes&version_pid=b00bdrst

Win He Will ....

Britain's got talent ....

Zambia .... or the crazy world of NGOs

One of the things C & I really wanted to understand once on the ground in Zambia .... was quite how the seemingly simple intervention for PMTCT (at its most basic just one tablet for the mum at delivery .... to the WHO recommended treatment - which is still less mind you than the extended preventative treatment any of us would get in the west - of one or two anti-retroviral drugs from 28 weeks and then syrup to the baby for anything from 1 day to a week after delivery .... and exclusive breast feeding - meaning absolutely NOTHING but breastmilk not even water - for 6 months if you can't guarantee safe water or continuous supply for formula feed ... which is essentially the whole of sub-saharan africa) needed to be integrated into the whole system of ante-natal care as a whole .... especially in more rural areas ....

An African health minister once warned me of NGOs that often enter countries with promises of quick-fix interventions e.g. a programme of vitamin A supplementation which was feted to cure all children of blindness at a cost of just 7 million dollars ... which in order to be implemented actually put on the overstretched national health system a cost of 77 million ... which clearly the NGO didn't consider in its costs .... i think today - we've all learned our lesseons somewhat but trying to triangulate this whole new approach to addressing the health system's needs ... yet avoiding the temptation to try and fix everything .... and still show results in the short term to please your donors .... is a complicated politricky dance ....

We visited urban and rural clinics packed to the rafters with expectant mothers and children pressed against all the sick and the competing for the attention of the heroic clinical staff .... rudimentary government labs and sleek NGO funded training centres ... pharmacies ..... community groups .... government ministries (its amazing that you can just get appointments with health ministers - imagine doing that at home! see - that is the indignity of being poor and having to welcome every idiot with a cheque book) ..... and swish NGO offices (fully complete with fleets of white 4x4s with tall flagpoles that sweep imperiously over rural roads .... C&I had a tiny starlet which showed us up totally as a pimply teenager in this very grown-up world of NGO multinationals)

I developed a huge respect for poor african health ministeries who have to juggle the demands, (well and not so well intentioned) interventions and directives of local organisations, NGOs, donor agencies, private sector etc etc .... one visit to the central medical stores showed boxes piled up from all over the world - condoms from the US, China, Sweden etc etc .... drugs from India ... bicycles from Germany .... bed nets from Britain ... all heaped up .... and they have to make sure that the they all get out to the right clinics spread across the country (often taking upto a week to travel) and coordinate expiry dates plus the politricks of difference agencies only wanting the clinics they support to receive the drugs they donate (yes i'm outing the Japanese)

This NGO driven agenda was most evident when we visited a rural clinic about 2-3 hours outside Lusaka .... where an amazing young clinical officer (sort of more than a nurse but not quite a Dr) ran a clinic with one other nurse for a catchment area of more than 10,000 people .... he provided a full set of services for his patients .... including the dual-therapy PMTCT that we are struggling to implement even in rich South Africa .... he proudly showed us the computer and printer carefully covered in plastic sheeting on his desk donated by an NGO so that he could use a patient 'smart-card' system and electronic medical record system that's being rolled out through an american PEPFAR initiative as a health system improvement .... however he still draws graphs of his quarterly achievements by hand (displayed behind the desk) and the pharmacy stock room was down to its last bottle of AZT and other ARVs (not to mention non-HIV drugs...) .... because no one has ever really taught him how to use the machine except for the smartcard .... and he still relies on copying everything painstakingly by hand ... because electricity tends to only be on for a couple of hours a day ....

When we were about to leave .... he refused at first to shake my hand .... "i won't say goodbye to you my sister until you promise me a borehole for the clinic" .... i was flabbergasted .... a borehole! but he had a computer!! He emotionally admitted that they had no water at the clinic so one of the two of them had to spend two hours a day fetching water to keep on hand for deliveries at the clinic, plus their own needs ..... a borehole would cost 11,000 kwatcha .... probably the half the cost of the unused printer on his desk ..... this is Development gone Mad.

P.M.T.C.T

Perhaps i got a little ahead of myself on the whole Malawi post earlier .... and perhaps should explain how it is i'm here in Africa again and not in London as i'm supposed to be ....

Some of you know that since I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I got back to London after/despite almost 4 years away .... I typically tried to keep all my options open (yes - my legendary commitment phobia still looms large) .... and so rather predictably I seem to now run around like a headless ninja .... gadding between the NHS, the London School of Tropical Medicine and attempting to do some consultancy work for NGOs on the side (the busy-ness of all this means that I can be smug about not having time to narrow my options down and make a decision) ....

Through the consultancy work - a friend/colleague and I were asked to look at the issue of mothers transmitting HIV to their babies (i.e. mother to child transmission - MTCT) which can occur during pregnancy, at birth and through breastfeeding .... and then tasked with developing a strategy for the NGO to scale up services in a yet-to-be-determined African country to prevent it (hence PMTCT).

The background tragedy is that there are now hugely effective ways to do stop this transmission happening ... and frankly we barely see kids born with hiv here in the west anymore .... but despite the science and treatment being known, tried and tested .... less than 15% of women who need it most actually have access to this treatment .... leading to hundreds of thousands of babies born unnecessarily exposed and infected ..... so that today over 90% of all children infected with HIV were infected by their mothers ....

And so C and I have travelled to Zambia and Malawi for a couple of weeks to look at how these two countries are addressing the problem given their high rates of HIV infection and to see why a prevention issue that seems to be such a no-brainer on the face of it (much easier than abstinence or condoms .... plus its all about babies .... great pics for development pornographers .... etc etc) has seemingly been languishing as the cinderella programme of the HIV world ....

In with the new

Apologies for the title change .... but i'm having a moving-on moment. Long story but hopefully you'll stick with me.

In the perfect moment .....

Occasionally .... you happen upon a moment that is just perfect to be in ....

Tonight under a full Malawian moon .... my friend Colin and I hung out with some of the staff at the farm we're staying at on the outskirts of Lilongwe .... they took us down to the village to hear some young guys who've been trying to get a band together ..... and before you scoff - this wasn't the usual development pornography stuff of men in loin cloths banging drums .... more young guys dressed like bob marley yet dreaming of being the african jay-z .... as chickens scratched around us ....

Sprawled out in the warm balmy night around a log fire ... after several bottles of south african red wine (the joy!) ..... the guys serenaded us with a ludicrous but charming session of Beatles covers (malawians get Ls and Rs mixed up .... so you can imagine "Ret it be .... Ret it be") - clearly what they thought the mzungus (meaning white people .... since yes - despite being brown - here i am apparently white) would like ..... and then some serious afro-hip-hop (i've no idea if it was more talib kweli than snoop - but it sounded amazing - and maybe bitches and hos in chichewa just sounds a lot more poetic) .... and then totally kicked it with a string of amazing local acapella songs .... those uplifting african harmony type songs that make your soul soar skywards .... make you breathless with the feeling that somehow feel that anything is possible .... and that magic could actually be real ....

We're off tomorrow to see a super-rural health centre where over a third of all the young women are infected with HIV and dozens upon dozens of children die from malnutrition every year ...... and where we're hoping we can find a site to set up a programme to stop mums transmitting HIV to their babies ..... and so i'm closing my eyes now and hoping the magic will stretch there too ....

PS Morning After: I'm a little sheepish this morning (and frankly hungover) ... i just found out this morning at breakfast .... that Madonna stayed at this farm when she - er - adopted her baby here .... perhaps not quite the fearless NGO-warrior image i'm striving for .... but still .... Madonna and I share a hotel!

Turning Tides? South Africa finally steps up to the plate ....

Finally we can be proud in SA that we've done something right by Zimbabwe ....

Yesterday the An Yue Jiang, a Chinese ship carrying weaponry destined for Zimbabwe left Durban harbour with its cargo intact. SATAWU (a local trade union) refused to unload the arms ..... and then the SA courts ruled that the weapons, including mortars, rocket propelled grenades and ammunition for AK-47s, could not be transported across South Africa.

Typically of President Mbeki's smokescreen "soft" diplomacy which has just facilitated the continuation of Mugabe's barbaric regime .... the SA government's response was that since there was no AU or UN embargo on weapons sales to Zimbabwe - SA had no role in interfering in a deal between China and Zim ....

In contrast Helen Zille (head of the opposition party - the Democratic Alliance) was excoriating in blasting the ANC's apathy on the issue and the potential consequences of allowing the cargo to be transported to a country already on the verge of implosion with a real risk of mass violence over election reruns .... accusing Mbeki of being complicit in state-sponsored terror of genocidal proportions .... and reminding people that it was a consignment of Chinese machetes that prefaced the killing of 800 000 people in Rwanda in 1994 ....

The ship is now on its way to Mozambique and the port of Beira .... one of the 15 poorest countries in the world and recipient of much Chinese "strings-free aid" to Africa (essentially building infrastructure - albeit with only Chinese contractors - in return for the countries signing over great swathes of mineral and natural resource rich land whilst turning a blind eye to graft and to whose pocket the money slips into .... )

Lets hope the next wave of Olympic torch protests are not just about Tibet .... but also about Darfur and Burma and Zimbabwe ..... and the list goes on ....

Support Dileepan

A friend and truly inspirational guy has been illegally detained in Zimbabwe .... he works for a non-partisan, non-profit NGO the National Democracy Institute .... and has been working in the region for years helping support parties in democratic elections .... please do visit his site to show your support if you can ... http://dileepan.typepad.com/

10 days to war

To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war - the bbc have made a great set of shorts entitled 10 days to war ..... partly thriller partly documentary partly entertainment .... they tell some of the untold stories and mistakes that have only been revealed since .... a sort of visual Imperial Life in the Emerald City .... the little films are moving, intelligent and shocking .... do watch. Its the sort of telly that makes you glad you pay your license fee.

In vino veritas .... but also in Woodford, and Oban and Tanqueray ...

Those of you who know me well ... will know that part of my love for the countries I've lived in or visited .... is manifest in my enduring love for all the forms of alcohol of the region ... obviously south african wine, aussie wine .... english gin .... american bourbon ... peruvian pisco ... single malt scotch ... brazilian cachaca ... cuban rum ... sake .... etc etc etc .... the fact that my friend Lisa could make enough of a video of me drinking to the entire Bare Naked Ladies song (Alcohol ...) as a birthday present is testament to me ... and a little worrying ...

Anyhow - now I'm back in London and trying to be a grown-up ... i've been seeking advice from mates as to how to cut back a little .... one friend Matt has stopped drinking from Monday to Wednesday - but could be left miserable if something big came up early in the week .... Nicole only drinks before Thursday in the week if she is abroad (which she almost always is ... so frankly she's just cheating) .... my mate Saskia is more flexible - at least three days a week of no drinking, two days of moderate and two days heavy (and she taught me to drink ....) ... but then I know i'd find myself engaging in a complicated log-book scenario of carrying days over and using up days in advance ....

I'm weighing up options of a system that someone actually uses honestly ..... all suggestions gratefully received ....

African Swansongs ...

What is it with hated global leaders making their final victory laps in Africa?

Tony Blair practically reviled at home and most of the rest of the world by the end of his time in office .... was greeted rapturously in Sierra Leone and ... er... Libya .... in part at least for Britain's part in ending the bloody conflict in West Africa .... and for championing the (largely inconsequential) Commission for Africa ....

And now its the turn of George Bush .... possibly the most disastrous president in recent history ... to many a walking crime against humanity ... whose vast catalogue of terrible programmes and heinous decisions has perhaps just one redeeming highpoint - namely PEPFAR (and to a lesser degree his Malaria initiative) ....

Now I've raged against PEPFAR a few times on this blog ..... and there are many issues on which I vociferously disagree with it and think its been a pernicious influence on the fight against AIDS ... however ... quite aside from the fact that it paid my salary for over 2 years .... there's no denying that (at least the treatment-allocated) money has reached down to the poorest of the poor (very unusual for aid money) .... and amazingly is actually doing what its supposed to be doing - both vertically and horizontally strengthening health systems in the recipient countries ...

A personal hero of mine - South African Dr Francois Venter (head of the HIV Clinicians Society in SA .... and all-round firebrand) sums up what I think most of us feel ......

"I look at all the blood this man has on his hands in Iraq and I can't quite believe myself but I would say it's a bold experiment from the last people in the world I would expect to do it, and it is saving a lot of lives. To intervene on such a scale and make such a difference is huge,"

And it is true that this is a remarkable achievement by a man who inherited the dubious legacy of President Clinton in Africa (the debacle of Somalia, the unforgivable blunders over Rwanda, the embassy bombings in Kenya/Tanzania etc) ... and who was once described by Nelson Mandela as a man "who can't think properly"....

But was it really enough? And was it what Africa needed?

PEPFAR is now widely acknowledged to have stemmed from Colin Powell and arose from a national security fears (also culminating in AfriCOM - the US African Command) ..... and its now its pretty clear that AIDS has not caused widespread political unrest nor failed states nor strengthened terrorism ....

In addition PEPFAR was heavily championed by evangelical movements in the US ... a sort of modern-day missionary-ising of Africa "saving the poor black people from themselves" .... but who are now (thankfully) seeing their leverage slip away and their global purge on sex in tatters ....

PEPFAR hasn't democratised .... it hasn't stabilised .... it was definitely conceived of in US national interests ... but extraordinarily it has genuinely helped some people in need and it has given them a precious few more years of life ... with a hope that more will come ... and it has undeniably set the pitch for the future of HIV treatment having to be made available and rolled out in the developing world as well as the developed ....

So as for what is next on the America-Africa agenda? Well we'll just have to wait for what President Obama thinks ....

No More Mandelas ...

Fantastic Panorama documentary this week - charting 25 years of South African history .... and ripping to shreds any pretences that this is not a country in deep deep strife and despair ..... Fergal Keane challenges the international community's myopic assumptions about South African post-apartheid stability .... but also doesn't hesitate to point the finger squarely at the corrupt fatness and almost junta-ness of the ANC .....

Friends who have recently returned from SA and those who live there report of a country in black depression .... power cuts (cape town recently spent a full 8 hours without power ... the whole city!), water shortages (even the fancy suburb of sandton in jozi went 2 days without water recently) .... spiralling crime .... only serve to highlight a society losing control ....

Mbeki's plain failures to show any decency on the issues of AIDS or Zimbabwe led even White/Indian/Non-Zulu South Africans to not feel too desolate about Zuma's election as head of the ANC (not too desolate in itself not exactly being a resounding endorsement) .... but further corruption charges against Zuma .... the arrest of the Chief of Police Jackie Selebi on criminal charges and associations with mobsters .... and the revival of the political fortunes of Winnie Mandela (a convicted kidnapper and fraudster behind some of the more abhorrent violence in the township riots of the late 80s including the infamous necklacing) ..... give the impression that the country is on a precipice .... a national breath-holding moment until its safe to exhale ... or scream ....


I love South Africa with a passion that I never thought I'd feel for another nation ..... and i hope with all my heart that the vibrant civil society structures that led to the demonstrations for HIV rights and gay rights in the country .... the journalists that braved to tell the world about apartheid .... and the priceless heroes such as Archbishop Tutu and Mandela will ensure that the current rot does not seep too deep .....

But at the same recent ANC conference that Zuma was elected at in December - the same delegates voted to disband the Scorpions - the elite anti-corruption squad that has been investigating Zuma and Selebi etc ..... and there have been dire warnings of violence if Zuma is found guilty alongside a resurgence of Zulu pride and tribalism (and we know where that got Kenya, Rwanda, Congo etc etc) .....

Do watch the programme if you can online .... and i'll leave you with this from Alan Paton:

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.
Let him not love the earth too deeply.
Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire.
Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley.
For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.
Cry, The Beloved Country, Chapter 12

The new lion king?!

Simba Makoni ..... an ex- Zanu PF cabinet minister government has formally announced his intention to stand against Robert Mugabe .... a happy happy day ....

Despite increasing disquiet in the country - it's still been an incredibly brave move to publicly challenge Mugabe from within his own system .... and predictably he has immediately been discommunicated from the Zanu-PF party .... and already threats such as “Traitors know how Zanu-PF deals with sellouts..." from Mugabe's "war veteran" rabble have spewed forth ...

However in reality - the continuing failure of the MDC to actually capture popular imagination or stop its in-fighting and the grimly worsening daily-life situation (a Dr friend from Harare writes of dipping into his final stocks of tinned food and crippling electricity shortages now that Zambia and South Africa won't supply Zim due to unpaid bills running into the millions .... thats US dollars ... am not sure there are words for what the amount would be in Zim dollars) .... mean that Makoni throwing his hat into the ring is the most positive development in Zim politics for a long while .... despite some of his more shadowy backers ....

Makoni claims to have widespread support from political players across the divide: “I know I will not be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us.”

With contrasts like this - lets hope we hear him roar soon ....

Salisbury (Harare) 1981
Harare 2007


Please note ... before i get any cross emails - I'm not in any way advocating that Salisbury 1981 was a better place .... just lamenting that Africa's bread basket with the most diversified economy and educated population has now slipped to a situation where the average life expectancy is 37.

Presidential Idols a.k.a Addicted to America

This US primary soap-opera has just been Ridiculous .... both in the good way ridiculous (is that ridonculous? christ i'm old) and in the bad way .... I find myself checking the Huffington Post (thanks Peter for the introduction) at least six times a day .... endlessly reading bloggers on the minutiae of every turn, gesture and intonation .... researching details of each of the candidates lives, previous votes etc .... scouring every outlet from the New Yorker (typically great piece by Herdrick Hertzberg today) to the Colbert Report and Jon Stewart's Daily Show (who frankly I declare my undying love for and would throw my knickers at in an instant)

And of course its not just me ... every party I go to in London its the first topic of conversation .... friends in Delhi, Cape Town, Lagos etc are all addicted, all galvanised by the idea that Barack could get elected .... and in truth that seems to be the crux of it for all of us internationally .... I don't think the rest of the world would be nearly so engaged if it was just Hillary against some other white man .... but the thought of America choosing a black president is just electrifying ....

I asked a New Yorker mate of mine who does fancy himself as a bit of a politico if he thought Americans realised what monumental interest had been generated internationally for these elections and what it would say about America to all of us if Obama was elected to office as essentially what is the President of the World .... rather depressingly - he replied that the issue was not whether they knew - but the fact that even Americans did know - they wouldn't care .... that put me and the rest of the world in our place then.

And then I realised that despite the news-whore I am (and my smug euro-superiority over "ignorant" yanks) .... I didn't even know my own Foreign minister's name ....

And yes - for those of you who know me .... I am deeply troubled by this sudden love for things American too .... I find myself now back in London actively seeking out yanks and trying to accrue a collection for myself to hang out with (perhaps foreign yanks are a different breed to those who stay at home?) .... i get all sentimental and yearning whenever I hear the accent .... and I even find myself defending them against (other) smug superior euros ..... perhaps its like a mild version of Stockholm syndrome (as in the James Bond movie - the World is Not Enough) .... where you develop some deep love for your ex-torturer .... now if only we could get the Iraqis to catch the same disease ....

Heart of Darkness indeed ....

I hear you groan loudly at the cliche ... i know i know ... pretty much as bad as "out of africa" ..... but truly this piece from the Guardian today makes you realise why things haven't changed that much in Congo since Joseph Conrad ....

The IRC apparently have estimated that an extra 45,000 people are continuing to die each month in the country .... repeat - an extra - so that's over and above whatever horrendous death rate would be expected in a central african country .... and that's despite the civil war having supposedly ended in 2002 .... horrifically pretty much half of those deaths are children .... in a country where one in 5 children doesn't make it to their 5th birthday ....

I was in Goma in June (photos from the trip) ... and it was truly the most scary place i'd ever been .... just minutes across the border from Rwanda - and bang - the danger was palpable .... as though anything and everything nasty could happen and no one would ever know about it or find you afterwards ..... and of course - the poverty was devastating and universal ..... resulting in the most pronounced survival instinct i'd ever seen (by which i mean a general MO to fleece anyone and everyone especially if they look a bleeding heart NGO-type liberal ... which the Congolese seem to be able to sniff out in seconds with expertise ... i clearly stood no chance at all) ....

So it's no surprise that most of these additional deaths are entirely preventable .... needless deaths related to pregnancy or early childhood problems, simple infections and wily old foes such as malaria ..... nothing for which there isn't cure or a remedy .... and which according to development people like Jeff Sachs could be reversed for say the cost of a month's war effort in iraq .... call me a a starry-eyed dreamer ... but just imagine if things like this were raised in some of the democratic debates instead of bill clinton's dancing abilities ..... that would be real change ....

Heartbreak in Kenya

I have just watched the loveliest tv programme this evening that had me in tears .... Elephant Diaries on the beeb follows the stories of the orphaned baby elephants at the David Sheldrick sanctuary in Nairobi .... orphaned baby elephants .... how can anyone even read those words and not well up ....

The programme was an emotional rollercoaster with a tiny wee blind baby being rescued (and then tragically dying ... leaving even the most hardened experienced keepers weeping) .... and most amazingly a game of elephant football for the boisterous group of teen-ellies to help them bond .....

It embodied everything that makes Kenya wonderful and glorious and gorgeous .... and made me cry even more as the news came on after .... with yet more reports from Eldoret and Kisumu amongst others of bodies, violence and more atrocities ....

Having had the pleasure of spending lots of time there - i love Kenya .... the people, the culture, the land .... i even (against all the odds) like Nairobi and Nairobi airport .... and to see this current crisis is truly heartbreaking.

I just hope that somehow the words of Wangari Mathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate from Kenya are heeded ....

Let us stand up for each other, irrespective of our ethnic backgrounds and political persuasions. Injustice to one is injustice to all of us. If we, individually and collectively, are not the conscience of our country, then who is?