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 ....