6/7/08

How the BBC fell in love with Mrs Thatcher

How the BBC fell in love with Mrs Thatcher


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/06/2008

A surprising new film about the Iron Lady reveals her sexy side says James Rampton

Margaret Thatcher has hit rock bottom.

 
Andrea Riseborough as the young Margaret Thatcher
Undeniably magnetic: Andrea Riseborough as the young Margaret Thatcher

It is the mid Fifties, and she has just been rejected for the umpteenth time as the candidate for a safe Conservative seat by a panel of male chauvinists. The self-made grocer's daughter from Grantham is inconsolable. "I am better than them," she wails to her husband. "I've always believed that with application and merit, you can achieve everything. But now I see you'll always end up strangled by the old school tie. Damn their Establishment, damn the lot of them." Tears roll down her face.

This is a key scene from BBC4's compelling new drama, Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley. Covering her decade-long battle against ingrained sexism as she struggled to find a winnable Tory seat between 1949 and 1959, the film humanises the former Prime Minister in the same way that Stephen Frears's film The Queen humanised the monarch. This is all the more surprising when you consider that the film is produced by the BBC, an organisation perceived by many - Lord Tebbit, for one - as being institutionally liberal and anti-Thatcherite.

As she fights the forces of reaction, Margaret Thatcher, played with rare magnetism by Andrea Riseborough, a 26-year-old rising star who recently appeared in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, comes across as a highly likable heroine. OK, so she's not quite Lara Croft, but she is still a formidable feminist trailblazer. She is, as Denis (Rory Kinnear) remarks the first time he meets her, "a force of bloody nature".

"I like to take the standard perception of a character and turn it on its head," says the programme's writer, Tony Saint. "This is an affectionate portrait of a commendably strong young woman who loved her husband and children, and I hope people who loathed Mrs Thatcher are really surprised by it.

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"We had a cast and crew screening of the film. It was full of media types, who are not Mrs Thatcher's natural supporters. At the end of the scene where she destroys Sir John Crowder [her predecessor as Tory MP for Finchley] the audience cheered. I thought, 'Oh my God, everyone is applauding Margaret Thatcher!'"

The drama had a similar effect on Samuel West, who gives a highly entertaining turn as Mrs Thatcher's perennial rival and predecessor as Tory leader, Ted Heath. "I'm a socialist and, like Ted Heath, no fan of Margaret Thatcher's," says the actor. "But I was fascinated by this script because for the first time it made it possible for me to admire her. This drama crystallises her struggle and unites her friends and foes. In the end, much to my surprise, I found myself rooting for her."

Riseborough was also won over by this Mrs Thatcher. "I don't share her politics, but I came away respecting her as a person," she says. "She managed everything from cooking Denis's breakfast of two poached eggs every morning to running the country on four hours' sleep a night. To become Britain's first female prime minister was amazing enough, but to do it in the face of this oppressive old boys' club was just incredible. It took me such a short time to feel real fondness for her.

"I've seen that horrible 'I've just smelt a fart' look that comes across some people's faces when they hear her name. You never want to mention her at a dinner party because you'll lose friends. After a while I stopped telling people I was playing her because everyone wanted to talk to me about it. For the first 50 or 60 conversations, it's interesting, but after that it begins to get boring. Mrs Thatcher bled into my life because she arouses such passionate feelings in people."

The film has a keen sense of humour, something that, in office, the real Margaret Thatcher seemed sometimes to lack. Written with the benefit of hindsight, it is littered with mischievous gags about what was to come. At one point her young son Mark wants to emulate his father by travelling. "Can I go to Africa one day?" he pleads. "I wouldn't cause any trouble." As Saint himself puts it, his film "has the feel of an Ealing Comedy".

The film has one further surprise up its sleeve: this version of Margaret Thatcher is undeniably sexy.

She wins over one crusty old Tory grandee with a coquettish, leg-crossing exhibition that Sharon Stone herself would have been proud of. She even has a highly flirtatious relationship with Ted Heath. At a Tory fund-raising dance, steam virtually comes out of his ears when he erroneously believes she is propositioning him.

But executive producer Robert Cooper warns us not to get the wrong end of the stick about this scene. "It's a joke! It's the most unlikely relationship in the whole world! We thought it was really funny to suggest that the longstanding tension between these figures should stem from Ted mistakenly thinking that she was making an advance on him. But come on, who's going to take that seriously?" For West, the scene is emblematic of Saint's relationship with reality. "Something can be true, whether it happened or not. We can't know what actually happened behind the scenes - it's much more thrilling to act something from a writer's imagination than trying to slavishly reproduce reality. This film is framed by reality, not limited by it."

So what would the lady herself think of Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley? "I hope that she takes the drama in the spirit in which it's intended," says Cooper. "It portrays what she went through very accurately and without mockery. And I think she'll enjoy the jokes as much as anyone else. I hope Carol will as well. As for Mark, where is he now anyway?"

Saint is equally hopeful that Baroness Thatcher's reaction to the drama will be positive. "At the heart of this film is a portrait of unstoppable drive and determination. It doesn't dwell on political ideology; it deals with those character traits. And as someone fundamentally lazy, I find them irresistible. God, I wish I had half Mrs Thatcher's energy!"

  • 'Margaret Thatcher: the Long Walk to Finchley' is on BBC4 at 9pm on Thursday





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    l'Assemblée nationale dénonce la mauvaise gestion de l'Unikin

    Kinshasa : l'Assemblée nationale dénonce la mauvaise gestion de l'Unikin

    RDC | 06 Juin 2008 à 07:26:56

     Débat jeudi à l'Assemblée nationale sur le rapport d'enquête relatif à la gestion de l'Université de Kinshasa. Selon les résultats de la commission d'enquête, l'Unikin est le reflet du laisser-aller de différents comités de gestion qui s'y sont succédé depuis 1990 à ce jour. L'enquête fait état d'une occupation irrégulière des homes des étudiants par des personnes qui n'en ont pas qualité, rapporte radiookapi.net

    Au cours du débat, les députés sont revenus plusieurs fois sur le vieillissement de l'université, la médiocrité des enseignements, le cumul des professeurs. Ils ont ainsi recommandé au gouvernement notamment de doter l'Unikin d'un budget conséquent pour son fonctionnement, d'assurer une rémunération décente au personnel académique, scientifique et administratif.

    Par Editeur Web




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    12.000 tonnes de matériels chinois à Kinshasa

    5 chantiers : 12.000 tonnes de matériels chinois à Kinshasa

    RDC | 06 Juin 2008 à 09:19:38

     Le cortège a traversé, jeudi, toute la ville de Kinshasa. Ceci est pour rassurer la population du démarrage effectif des travaux de cinq chantiers du Gouvernement. Selon un expert du ministère des Travaux publics, ce matériel constitue le premier lot des engins commandés dans le cadre de la coopération sino-congolaise. D'autres engins sont attendus dans les jours qui viennent, rapporte radiookapi.net

    Des containers, des camions-bennes et autres engins, voilà ce qui constitue l'essentiel du matériel qui est arrivé le soir du jeudi Kinshasa. Mais ce n'est pas fini, a indiqué monsieur Ntumba, expert au ministère des travaux publics : « c'est le premier bateau qui est arrivé, 12.000 tonnes. Il y a encore un bateau qui a accosté à Pointe Noire. Dans 5, 6 jours, ça va être ramené à Matadi. Ça fait 4.500 tonnes. Et à Lubumbashi, d'ici une semaine, il y aura 14.000 tonnes qui vont arriver », a-t-il déclaré.

    Au passage du cortège, la population n'a pas manqué de manifester sa satisfaction de voir des engins qui, selon elle, viennent non seulement effectuer les travaux du gouvernement mais aussi donner du travail au peuple congolais : « Nous sommes très contents, il faut que l'Etat pose des actions pareilles. Nous sommes longtemps restés au chômage, maintenant, on peut avoir du travail, nous accueillons avec joie ce matériel ».

    Avec cette première débarcation, les congolais pourront peut-être s'attendre à l'effectivité des travaux des 5 chantiers du gouvernement.

    Par Editeur Web






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    Ugandan rebels 'prepare for war'

    Ugandan rebels 'prepare for war'

    Joseph Kony
    Joseph Kony is still hiding in eastern DR Congo

    Uganda's rebel leader Joseph Kony is reportedly preparing a new offensive after refusing to sign a peace deal.

    Diplomats say his Lord's Resistance Army is forcibly recruiting fresh fighters and acquiring new arms in neighbouring countries.

    His fighters are reported to have attacked South Sudanese forces, killing 13 troops and seven civilians.

    Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and the region's armies have this week all suggested taking military action.

    The LRA is believed to be digging up arms caches and resuming their usual practice of abducting civilians, who are then press-ganged into acting as fighters, porters or concubines.

    We're throwing all this away
    Archbishop John Odama

    This is said to be taking place in a large area encompassing parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Sudan.

    Around 1,000 new recruits have been added to around 600 existing combatants.

    There are also reports that Chadian rebels have been seen offering them fresh supplies of weaponry.

    Elusive

    Former Ugandan peace envoy Betty Bigombe says it is a tragedy that Mr Kony refused to sign the peace deal agreed by his representatives after two years of talks in April.

    "I still hope he will re-consider and sign," she told the BBC.

    But President Museveni has regional support for military action.

    map

    Earlier this week, senior army officers from Uganda, South Sudan and DR Congo agreed on a plan to launch a joint military operation to crush the LRA.

    However, BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says this strategy has been tried many times before, and even with Western backing, no-one has ever been able to capture or kill the elusive rebel leader.

    Earlier, the Catholic Archbishop of Gulu in northern Uganda called for a peace deal between the government and the LRA.

    Archbishop John Odama warned that the failure to achieve peace would destabilise the region and reverse the progress made during the peace talks.

    "If we go now for war, it means we're throwing all this away," he said.

    "This war was national and it has gone now to what we call regional, and therefore it is spreading. If it can be stopped before it goes to that extent, the better for Africa," he said.

    Throughout the peace talks, in the South Sudan capital Juba, Mr Kony remained in DR Congo, while he and his top commanders were the subjects of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    He is accused of numerous war crimes, including mutilating and abducting civilians and forcing thousands of children into combat.




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    Infocom Uganda leases fiber from power utility

    Infocom Uganda leases fiber from power utility

    By Edris Kisambira , IDG News Service , 06/06/2008

    As East Africa anticipates the landing of two undersea fiber optic cables on its shores in 2009, Infocom Uganda has leased optic fiber capacity from power utility Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL).

    Infocom has leased the fiber optic capacity, which covers 230 kilometers, from Kampala to the border town of Malaba that Uganda shares with Kenya to enable access to the much needed fiber when it lands at the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa.

    "We have leased the fiber, but we have also made an investment of US$750,000 in terms of other infrastructure," Hans Haerdtle, the general manager of Infocom Uganda, said.

    The fiber link between Kampala and Malaba then ties into another terrestrial optic fiber that has been laid by Infocom's partner, Kenya Data Networks (KDN). Infocom and KDN are partners thanks to a $85 million deal that saw South Africa's Altech buy into the two firms in March.

    "The group [Altech] owns complete fiber stretch from Kampala to the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa," Haerdtle said. "That means we will be ready to receive fiber when it lands at Mombasa in 18 months."

    He said there are plans of leasing additional fiber to extend coverage to the Uganda/Rwanda border by the end of this year.

    In terms of international fiber, KDN is known to be on the list of shareholders for The East African Marine System (TEAMS) -- a fiber optic that has been pushed by the Kenyan government. KDN has been allocated a 10 percent share holding, costing $11.1 million for 65.8M bps (bits per second), in TEAMS.

    Outside fiber optics, Infocom has started an aggressive roll-out of its WiMax technology to expand its geographical reach and capacity.

    "In the next two months, we will have doubled our capacity," Haerdtle said. "We will cover all of greater Kampala, plus 16 upcountry locations."

    According to Haerdtle, Infocom covers 65 percent of Kampala and has coverage in 14 locations outside of the capital. Under the same roll-out plan, Infocom is looking to upgrade some of its older wireless technology.

    Under its WiMax platform, Infocom has two offerings, and plans are in advanced stages to introduce a third one, which will enable access on handheld gadgets like laptops and PDAs (personal digital assistants). Haerdtle said Infocom currently has 3,500 subscribers on its WiMax platform who pay between $280 and $850, depending on download capacity and connection rates. It has a voice offering using VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), called Talklite, which is also available to its broadband customers as an added service, having been introduced at the end of last year. Haerdtle said the service will be made available for any broadband client through the Uganda Internet Exchange point soon.






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    6/6/08

    Pogroms in South Africa: The Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics

    Pogroms in South Africa: The Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics

    by Michael Neocosmos

    Friday Jun 6th, 2008 6:37 AM
    A thoughtful response to the recent pogroms in South Africa that does not make the mistake of seeing the state as innocent in all of this.
    by Michael Neocosmos, 5 June 2008

    Pogroms in South Africa: The Politics of Fear and the Fear of Politics

    Reflecting on the causes of the recent xenophobic pogroms in the country, it is striking how most commentators have stressed poverty and deprivation as the underlying causes of the events. Yet it requires little effort to see that economic factors, however real, cannot possibly account for why it was those deemed to be non-South Africans who bore the brunt of the vicious attacks. Poverty can be and has historically been the foundation for the whole range of political ideologies, from communism to fascism and anything in between. In actual fact, poverty can only account for the powerlessness, frustration and desperation of the perpetrators, but not for their target. After all why were not Whites or the rich or for that matter White foreigners in South Africa targeted instead? Of course it is a common occurrence that the powerless regularly take out their frustrations on the weakest: women, children, the elderly… and outsiders. Yet this will not suffice as an explanation. The systematic and concerted attacks on those deemed to be foreign according to popular stereotypes requires more of an explanation than powerlessness can provide, however important a factor that may have been.

    In order to provide a more inclusive explanation one should first recall the observations of Frantz Fanon in the immediate post-independence period in Africa: "the working class of the towns, the masses of the unemployed, the small artisans and craftsmen … line up behind this nationalist attitude; but in all justice let it be said, they only follow in the steps of their bourgeoisie. If the national bourgeoisie goes into competition with the Europeans, the artisans and craftsmen start a fight against non-national Africans…From nationalism we have passed to ultra-nationalism, to chauvinism, and finally to racism. These foreigners are called on to leave; their shops are burned, their street stalls are wrecked…" The collapse of nationalism into chauvinism, Fanon observed, was fundamentally occasioned by the new post-independence elites to grab the jobs and capital of the departing Europeans, while the popular classes only followed in their footsteps in attacking foreign Africans. This suggests that a politics of nationalism founded on stressing indigeneity lay at the root of post-colonial xenophobia. To what extent is Fanon's account applicable to post-apartheid South Africa?

    There is little doubt that the politics of grabbing and enrichment among the post-apartheid elite have been both brazen and extensive. So-called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has enabled the development of a new class of so-called 'black diamonds' whose newly found wealth is not particularly geared towards national accumulation and development but primarily towards short term quick profits in a country where estimates put the poor at half the total population. Reports of corruption among state personnel from the national to the local levels abound and are obvious for all to see. Few get prosecuted let alone convicted in a hegemonic culture which extols the virtues of free-market capitalism, which equates private enrichment with the public good and quick profit with development. Yet how do we logically move from this to scapegoating the 'foreign other'? In order to provide an answer, we must shift our focus from economic to political hegemonic ideologies.

    I have argued at length elsewhere that xenophobia must be understood as a political discourse, the result of political ideologies and consciousnesses - in brief political subjectivities - which have arisen, and have been allowed to arise in post-apartheid South Africa, as a result of a politics of fear prevalent in both state and society. This politics of fear has at least three major components: a state discourse of xenophobia, a discourse of South African exceptionalism and a conception of citizenship founded exclusively on indigeneity. This politics of fear which finds its origins fundamentally within the apparatuses of power, has been complemented since the 1990s by a fear of politics, ie. the unwillingness or the inability of popular politics, with a few exceptions, to break away systematically from a state politics of fear.

    There is a name for the kind of political activity which we have witnessed over the past few weeks: the politics of (ethnic) cleansing, made infamous in the ex-Yugoslavia of the 1990s and then repeated in several parts of the continent, Rwanda and more recently Kenya being the most infamous. The notion of 'cleansing' with all its dehumanising connotations of dirt and purification is a common leitmotif of all these politics irrespective of their historical specificities. The notion of 'cleansing' was also used in the recent South African pogroms by perpetrators. It should be clear that the term 'cleansing' is the name of a politics of fear, of violence, a politics of war against those who are seen to be different for whatever reason. To counter these politics, an active politics of peace is necessary, but for this to develop we need first to understand the politics of fear and the fear of politics which prevails in South Africa today.

    A state discourse of xenophobia

    Government departments, parliamentarians, the police, the Lindela detention centre, the law itself have all been reinforcing a one way message since the 1990s: We are being invaded by illegal immigrants who are a threat to national stability, the RDP, development, our social services, the very fabric of our society. Moreover African migrants are fair game for making a fast buck by those with power, (police, state bureaucrats, employees at Lindela). Examples abound, but what is interesting from interviewing migrants from West Africa in 2003 is that while xenophobia from state agencies was consistent, that from the South African people was very contradictory. We can see that today in that many South Africans helped distressed foreigners in many ways. As reminders for people like ex-home affairs minister Mangosotho Buthelezi who today cries tears for the victims of xenophobic violence, he stated in 1998 that "if we as South Africans are going to compete for scarce resources with millions of aliens who are pouring into South Africa, then we can bid goodbye to our Reconstruction and Development Programme". In fact Buthelezi developed quite a notoriety for his infamous xenophobic statements which included inter alia the suggestion that all Nigerian immigrants are criminals and drug traffickers. Not only Buthelezi but politicians of all shades of opinion asserted their politics of fear; by 1998 Human Rights Watch had concluded that: "in general, South Africa's public culture has become increasingly xenophobic, and politicians often make unsubstantiated and inflammatory statements that the 'deluge' of migrants is responsible for the current crime wave, rising unemployment and even the spread of diseases."

    This political discourse was supplemented by regular police crackdowns on 'illegal immigrants' and the setting up of regular extortion rackets by the police in places like Esselen Street in Pretoria. At one point in 2000, when the Human rights Commission meekly 'raised its concerns' regarding "the ill-treatment of 'illegal immigrants' in recent police blitzes in Gauteng", a government spokesperson was quoted as saying that the HRC "was creating the impression of being sympathetic towards illegal immigrants" continuing to state that the government wanted to hold regular meetings with the HRC to ensure that they do not work at "cross purposes".

    The police are particularly notorious, using their powers to avoid intervening to help foreign migrants when attacked by tsotsis, by raiding and beating up migrants in their sanctuaries, by tearing up official documents. All this is documented at length. Moreover, and this is less documented, there is evidence that on several occasions police and employees of various departments have in the past encouraged members of communities to 'uproot' or round up 'illegal immigrants', leading to systematic xenophobic violence. It would be important to find out the extent to which there may have been evidence of this also this time. In other words, state institutions have, in the past, provided legitimacy to the kind of behaviour we have been seeing today. Although state institutions have never condoned violence against migrants and have regularly condemned it, they have provided an environment wherein such xenophobic violence has appeared as legitimised by the state.

    I refrain from detailing migrants' experiences at Lindela detention centre, suffice it to note that this is not a prison and that the people held there have not been found guilty of any crime. Here are some of the statements fro research on Lindela. The Human rights Commission found in 1999 that "employees of the private Dyambu Trust (which runs Lindela) extort money from detainees under a wide variety of circumstances. These circumstances include requiring money for fingerprinting, for the use of public telephones, and in order to allow access of family and friends to the Facility…" Moreover, staff at Lindela also extorted amounts apparently for the final processing of those who are due to be deported: "at Lindela we were asked to pay an amount of R50.00 before being deported to Zimbabwe…yesterday we were supposed to go home but they asked for money to take us home. I didn't have any money so I didn't go."

    In other words people are kept in what amounts to detention - in conditions worse than prison according to the same reports - and not repatriated on time unless they pay bribes to officials. In fact at this centre, people's rights are systematically denied and they seem to be regularly coerced, including through the use of physical violence for the simple reasons of maintaining control. People are denied a free phone call as required by law, they are not informed of their rights and they are detained regularly for longer than the stipulated maximum of 30 days. Another victim stated: "the security staff here at Lindela randomly abuse us. They assault us. They leave us alone in the Wall and we are not allowed to go to the loo unless given permission. But since they do not enquire as regularly as they should, people often go to the loo without asking. If such a person is caught he is usually assaulted by security officials".

    As has been observed on many occasions, the legislation which deals with issues of migration in South Africa is founded on notions of exclusion and control and is founded on the assumption that people wish to abuse the system and come to South Africa to take and not provide anything. The idea behind the legislation, according to one author is to defend 'Fortress South Africa" against "hordes of immigrants". To do this, police officers and officials from the Department of Home Affairs are given such excessive powers over extremely vulnerable people that the bribery, extortion and corruption become not only possible but regular practices.

    The press has by and large also contributed to creating a climate of fear of migrants. A number of surveys of the press have been undertaken one remarking that "the general tenor running through English-language newspaper reportage on foreign migration issues is more negative, more unanalytical than critical". Insofar as the content of the press coverage is concerned regular refrains concern the comment that "migrants 'steal jobs'", that migrants are mostly "illegal", that they are "flooding into the country to find work" while a typical statement was that "foreigners are unacceptably encroaching on the informal sector and therefore on the livelihoods of our huge number of unemployed people". Other xenophobic repetitions concern the supposed drain which migrants represent on the South African fiscus, the links between illegality and migration (occurring in 38 percent of the sample analysed) and the purported links between crime and immigrants such as in the statement in the Financial Mail of the 9th September 1994 that: " the high rate of crime and violence - mainly gun-running, drug trafficking and armed robbery - is directly related to the rising number of illegals in SA". One researcher puts the facts straight, when she notes that "out of all the arrests made in 1998, South African citizens comprise an average of 98%".

    Under such conditions, it is not at all surprising that a public discourse of fear and xenophobia has become hegemonic in the public sphere. The politics associated with this discourse are invariably founded on the notion that migrants from Africa are here to take and not to give. After all they are so much more backward than we are in Africa! It should be noted that such xenophobic conceptions are also prevalent among professionals. One respondent who had a high position in the Department of Health told me that every time a new appointment was made, his South African colleagues sent him a copy of the immigration legislation as if to say that they only wanted Black south Africans appointed.

    The discourse of exceptionalism

    There is a hegemonic notion of exceptionalism in South African public culture (maintained by all not only Whites). The prevalent idea here is that our country is not really in Africa and that our intellectual and cultural frame of reference is in the United States and Europe. Africa is the place of the other. Given that South Africa is industrialised, democratic, advanced in relation to other countries of the continent and also a paragon of reconciliation and political liberalism. It was thought until recently that what happened in Rwanda in 1995 or more recently Kenya could not possibly happen here. According to this perception, South Africa is somehow more akin to a Southern European or Latin American country given its relatively high levels of industrialization, and now increasingly of liberal democracy. To this must be added the view that South Africa must be celebrated as it is the envy of the world as it has managed a reconciliation process successfully. A corollary of this view is one that sees Africa as some kind of strange backward continent characterized by primitivism, corruption, authoritarianism, poverty and >failed states= so that its inhabitants wish only to partake of South African resources and wealth at the expense of its citizens. Africa is thus a continent to be guided, advised, developed and visited by tourists in search of authentic primitivism and wild animals. It is not a continent where we belong, only a place to be acted upon. This view is regularly upheld by the press which simply takes its cue from its European largely neo-colonial sources which are reproduced totally uncritically.

    While such views are not universal, they are indeed dominant. This dominance has not been unconnected to a schizophrenia characteristic of the new Black ruling elite which, on the one hand, wishes to assert its Africanness vis-a-vis the old ruling elite of Whites, but which concurrently asserts stridently its adherence to a Western culture of neo-liberal economics and politics. Presumably its ability to become super-rich is predicated precisely on its acceptance in the global world of the new capitalist world order. Africa seems to be an embarrassment to the new elite as it seems to remind them of who they wish to forget, their poorer relatives; although simultaneously it is seen as a place where fortunes can be made, in extractive industries for example. The dominant South African discourse on Africa is thus undoubtedly neo-colonial in its essence.

    The discourse of indigeneity.

    The idea that we are not Africans is complimented by the dominant perception that indigeneity is the only way to acquire resources, jobs, and all the other goodies which should be reserved for 'us' only. This necessarily leads to a debate on who is more indigenous, and hence to nativism, the view that there is an essence of South Africanness which is to be found in 'natives'. Hence the stress on the native (eg in Native Club) which itself leads to privileging the twin ideas of birth and phenotype ('race') as the essence of the indigenous. This is extremely dangerous. A recent letter to the Mail & Guardian newspaper argued that BEE deals should be restricted to the indigenous, by which the author meant that "Indians" and "Coloureds" being somehow less indigenous should be excluded. This is a common way of arguing in the public sphere. In fact historically, the only true indigenous in Southern Africa would be the San, all other groups having migrated from somewhere else at one time or other in history. Indigeneity then is never a historical fact nor indeed a natural one, it is always politically defined by those with power. The previous apartheid regime spent much intellectual time and effort trying to prove that there were no people living in South Africa before the White colonisers arrived, precisely to stress their indigeneity and hence to exclude. Most elites on the continent and elsewhere have done the same as they have organised citizenship rights around political indigeneity.

    Moreover the post-apartheid state has continued to classify people according to apartheid groupings. This is a fundamental problem, as it stresses the thinking of politics through the lenses of racial and national stereotypes which are 'naturalised'. Blackness is only stressed vis-a-vis Whites, not in relation to other Africans. In fact there has been a complete failure by the post-apartheid state to construct a nationalism which is firmly rooted in Africa. Nepad is simply the neo-liberal Western entry into the continent. Neither the ideas of the African Renaissance nor those of Ubuntu have been taken beyond the stage of being simply state slogans with little in terms of roots in the population at large.

    Beyond the fear of Politics

    It can be seen then that xenophobia is a political discourse, a set of ideological parameters within which solutions to our pressing problems are being conceived. The terrible thing is that other than in a few instances, such a discourse has been unsuccessfully contested and has been allowed to become hegemonic. There is no doubt that many in the ANC in particular have spoken up against xenophobic utterances in the past, but these have been largely isolated voices and in any case they have not constituted an alternative political discourse founded on equality. They have themselves been largely equivocal. We do not like xenophobia but on the other hand how are our social services to cope under massive pressure from immigrants? It should be clear therefore that the recent wave of xenophobic pogroms, was entirely predictable given the political discourse briefly outlined above. The fact that quasi-fascist (a strong word perhaps but I can think of no other) politics has acquired a certain grip over large sections of the poor should come as no surprise. To use Malcolm X's famous expression, "the chickens have come home to roost".

    The final point then must be one of confronting the fear and passivity of putting across alternative discourses. Passive citizenship, the expectation of delivery from the state, the fear of criticism, self-censorship, the culture of uncritical celebration have all been noted at one time or another as obstacles to political thought. A fear of contesting authority, kowtowing to those in power, the politics of cramming 'our people' into positions, all this has lead not only to a demarcation between ethnic and other identities capable of 'delivering', but also to a politics of the exclusion of others as a standard/ normal practice. The exclusion of alternatives (economic, political or intellectual) constitutes the dominant practice. The fear of responding to the politics of fear in a critical and organised manner, to say no to treating people differently, to say yes to maintaining a firm point that all must be treated equally by power; the absence of all this constitutes the fear of politics, the fear of political agency by all of us. This is why those South Africans who risked their lives to help those foreigners being attacked in a myriad of ways should be saluted. Politics is too important a business to be left to politicians alone. A consistent political practice of peace must be systematically developed and sustained in the face of attack. If this becomes an outcome of the current events, it would be a very positive development. The demonstrations in Johannesburg and elsewhere a few week-ends ago were important beginnings, we need to pursue this and not lose the momentum. The alternative is to allow the current collapse into evil to degenerate even further into inter ethnic violence, which it easily could.

    We cannot wait for elections to engage in politics for what is right. We need to maintain what the French philosopher Badiou calls an axiom of equality, namely the idea that every single person who lives in this country must count the same and must be treated the same. To remind you of the Freedom Charter: South Africa belongs to all who live in it. The only way to challenge xenophobia is to courageously fight the fear of politics and stand up for those ideas which challenge the politics of fear and discrimination. Some have already began doing this. It is noteworthy for example that in Durban in those shack settlements in which the popular movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has a strong presence, there were no incidences of xenophobic attacks . Abahlali released what I think was the most important statement on the xenophobic violence. It is particularly significant in that it has emanated from an organisation of poor shack-dwellers themselves. One of its main statements was: "An action can be illegal. A person cannot be illegal. A person is a person wherever they may find themselves". It seems to me that holding on to the consequences of such an axiom is where an alternative politics of peace and equality should begin.





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    AP Frets Over John McCain’s New Slogan

    AP Frets Over John McCain's New Slogan

    By Terry Trippany | June 6, 2008 - 09:59 ET

    The article is simply headlined "McCain alters Obama slogan to his own liking". At first I had expected the report to be a complaint along the lines that John McCain was using Barack Obama's own slogan against him in a critical manner. When I read the article however I learned that the AP is claiming that John McCain not only took Barack Obama's slogan and transformed it into his own but that he also had the gall to create a new branding on his website that supposedly uses Obama's signature design: red, white and blue in an arrangement consisting of red and white stripes. (all emphasis mine)

    Republican John McCain has transformed rival Barack Obama's slogan of "Change We Can Believe In" into his own line, "A Leader We Can Believe In."

    McCain's campaign this week posted the personalized motto on its Web site, http://www.johnmccain.com . The white, bold words are posted on a blue background above red and white stripes - a pattern similar to Obama's campaign logo.

     

    The idea that someone would make an issue out of John McCain using the patterns of the American flag in a motto on his web site is hardly worth the space used to print it. The designs aren't even close. This would be laughable if the AP was not so serious in it's report.

    I looked around to see if there was some merit to the similarities claim and was hard pressed to find many Obama logos sporting a blue background with bold white letters. The logo that I found most often was the signature issue white background with the red, white and blue circle logo. That's not to say that one with a blue background doesn't exist but it is a silly premise to be making such comparisons when so many variations of each candidates logos exist. All candidates typically use patriotic variations of the American flag in their designs.

    Perhaps from a strategic point of view the similarities between the slogans have merit and are worthy of discussion. But the media should expect that John McCain would do everything possible to contrast himself with Barack Obama. A play on Obama's campaign slogan is only natural. I would expect Barack Obama to do the same.

    With respect to the insinuation that John McCain is lifting from Barack Obama by using the patterns of the American flag I see a different issue. It is the difference that one line makes. The implication is that Barack is fresh and original, heck, John McCain even copies his logo! To me it demonstrates a larger objectivity problem with a media that places Barack Obama on such a high pedestal that they could even fathom printing such a claim in the first place.

    Terry Trippany is the editor and publisher of Webloggin.






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    Ugandan rebel group raids S Sudan's army camp, killing 21

    Ugandan rebel group raids S Sudan's army camp, killing 21


    www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-06 21:39:42   Print

    KAMPALA, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan rebel the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) raided a camp of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in a seemingly new wave of violence, killing 21 people, the Ugandan army said here on Friday.

        Capt. Ronald Kakurungu, army spokesman for northern Uganda, told Xinhua by telephone that between 80 to 100 rebels attacked an SPLA camp at the southern Sudan border town of Nabanga on Thursday morning before they withdrew to their hideout in Garamba forest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

        Kakurungu said there were reports that the rebel group told Radio France International they launched the attack in retaliation of an earlier attack by the SPLA, which is to him very skeptical.

        The rebel attack on military target, the first of its kind since the peace negotiations began in July, 2006 under the mediation of the southern Sudanese authorities, came right after a regional military chiefs' meeting here early this week.

        The meeting was aimed to design a military strategy to wipe out the forces in the region that threaten security and stability of the Great Lakes Region, including the LRA.

        Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in his State of Nation Address on Thursday that the army is capable of "destroying" the rebel group in its hideout if the DRC and UN seek assistance from Uganda.

        Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kuteesa, on the other hand, told reporters here on Friday that the LRA still have an option of signing a final peace deal, short of which they risk a military attack.

        The LRA's over-two-decade conflict has left tens of thousands of people dead and over two million people homeless in northern Uganda before they fled to southern Sudan, then the DRC, following intensified military pursuit by the Ugandan army. 


    Editor: An Lu




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    Intouchable Nadal

     

     






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    Israeli politics in grip of a 'Roman' decay

    Israeli politics in grip of a 'Roman' decay

    Israeli soldiers carry a blindfolded Palestinian, detained in a military operation in the Gaza Strip, onto a truck.

    Israeli soldiers carry a blindfolded Palestinian, detained in a military operation in the Gaza Strip, onto a truck. Photo: Reuters

    A SHAWARMA vendor in Jerusalem's busy Ben-Yehuda shopping mall seemed as good a person as any to ask about the wretched state of Israeli politics.

    "I am disgusted!" shouted a sweaty Avi Meir, slicing with added vigour into a massive roll of roasting chicken meat.

    "Up there in the Knesset," Meir said, pointing his carving knife towards the Israeli Parliament, "it's like a Roman orgy. When I was a kid I had heroes for politicians. Now I have criminals."

    Sixty years into its turbulent history, many Israelis fear that unless the state undertakes major political reforms it won't make it to 100.

    Read through the list of recent scandals and Meir's nod to the decadence of imperial Rome sounds more like understatement than hyperbole. Here's just a sample:

    ■In July last year, Israel's eighth president, Moshe Katsav, was forced to resign after 10 women accused the career politician of various degrees of sexual assault ranging from rape to harassment.

    ■Katsav's predecessor, Ezer Weizman, was booted out after it was revealed he had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in "gifts" from a French millionaire while serving as an MP.

    ■In January last year, former Israeli justice minister Haim Ramon was found guilty of sexual assault after molesting a woman soldier at a ministerial soiree where he forcibly French-kissed her. He has since been reappointed to cabinet as vice-premier and minister in the Prime Minister's Office with responsibility for state policy.

    ■Tzachi Hanegbi is still a member of the Knesset but had to resign as minister for internal security in 2006 when he was indicted on charges of fraud, bribery and lying under oath. His trial is ongoing.

    ■Omri Sharon, the son of former prime minister Ariel Sharon, was briefly a member of the Knesset until he was imprisoned in 2006 for corruption and perjury offences.

    On Wednesday, this list grew when a Tel Aviv court charged former finance minister Avraham Hirschson — a protege of the current Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert — with crimes including aggravated theft, fraud, embezzlement and obstruction of justice.

    Which leads to Olmert himself, who since assuming the prime ministership in January 2006 has been the subject of five investigations.

    The latest centres on allegations that from the time he was elected mayor of Jerusalem in 1993 to when he was a senior minister in the Sharon government, he accepted up to $520,000 in illegal campaign contributions and bribes from New York businessman Moshe Talansky, much of it supposedly delivered in brown paper bags.

    In lurid testimony at the Jerusalem District Court, Talansky described how Olmert would tap him for money to pay for his bar tab, luxury holidays in Italy, or first-class air tickets to the United States.

    Judging from the pictures of Olmert seated with American President George Bush in the Oval Office this week, waving happily to the voters back home, he seems oblivious to the damage his tenure is causing.

    Since the latest scandal broke a month ago, Olmert has put handing over the Golan Heights back on the table in high-level talks with Syria, and been behind active efforts to broker a truce with the Islamist political movement Hamas.

    In his weekly column in The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Isi Leibler, the founder of Australia's Jetset Travel who emigrated to Israel a decade ago, said that while most Israelis would welcome Olmert's departure, the problems would not end there.

    "Let us not delude ourselves," Leibler wrote. "The rot extends far beyond the person of the Prime Minister. Leaders of both Labor and Likud, either directly or via their acolytes, have brazenly indulged in illegal fund-raising. Accepting 'personal gifts' from both wealthy diaspora Jews and Israelis has become the accepted norm."

    So where to now? According to Amotz Asa-El, adjunct professor at the Shalem Centre, a privately funded research institute, Israel must abandon its system of extreme proportional representation, where MPs are accountable only to the party bosses who select their position on national voting lists and where small, special interest parties end up holding the balance of power in fragile coalitions, often subverting the national interest for their own.

    "We have a very serious and alarming crisis of political leadership in this country," Asa-El told The Age. "The problem at its heart is the electoral system, and unless we change it, the state of deterioration we are suffering now will only get worse."

    Asa-El says the only way out is to adopt a system where at least half Israel's MPs are directly elected from residential districts. "But first we have to convince the politicians to change a system that suits them. It's not going to be easy."






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    Cambodia's Sihanouk says his son may abdicate

    Cambodia's Sihanouk says his son may abdicate

    Phnom Penh (dpa) - Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk hinted Friday that his son, King Norodom Sihamoni, may be considering abdicating to live a "simple life" in France.

    In a letter posted on his website received Friday and dated Thursday, the octogenarian former monarch outlined a conversation he said he had had with Sihamoni on the day of writing.

    "My beloved son told me, 'Papa, please do not worry - your darling son could return to Paris and live a normal life'," Sihanouk wrote in French on his blog.

    "I will hire a small room and stay with my wife, have a simple bathroom and eat simple food I can buy from a simple shop," Sihanouk quoted his son as saying.

    Sihamoni is currently a bachelor.

    He also said Sihamoni would refuse contact with journalists.

    In the letter, entitled 'The Real Story', Sihanouk warned of a possible upcoming upheaval in the monarchy.

    Sihanouk shocked many when he abdicated in 2004, citing advancing age and ill-health, and Sihamoni, previously an ambassador to the United Nations Education Scentific and Cultural Organization and a classical dancer before his ascension to the throne, took the reigns.

    Fluent in French and Czech, Sihamoni, 55, was initially little known to ordinary Cambodians due to his long overseas career but has earned adoration in a country which recognizes kings as demi-gods.

    He has eschewed politics, unlike his mercurial father during certain periods of his reign, who strutted the world stage.

    Sihamoni's half-brother and Sihanouk's son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is currently in exile after being convicted for breach of trust in absentia and sentenced to 18 months in jail for his role in selling the headquarters of his former political party, Funcinpec.






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    Security And Humanitarian Conditions Improve in Pool Region

    Congo-Brazzaville: Security And Humanitarian Conditions Improve in Pool Region


    UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
     

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    Brazzaville

    Security and humanitarian conditions in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo have improved significantly in recent months despite a political deadlock that has prevented a key former rebel leader taking up his government post in the capital, Brazzaville, humanitarian officials have said.

    "Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to leave the Congo because the humanitarian context has changed. It has improved considerably," Lai-Ling Lee, the head of the MSF mission in the country, said.

    "In 2007 we registered fewer incidents [in the Pool region] than in the years before," Lee reported. "We are handing over to the local authorities to provide the people with the necessary interventions." MSF has been providing humanitarian assistance in the Pool region since 1998.

    The improved security has also allowed for the dismantling of road blocks erected by security forces and ex-combatants in the region.

    "All the barriers have been removed," Col. Ibata Yhomby, the regional commander of the police force in Brazzaville, said. "The accomplishment of this operation is a great relief for the people of Pool." The Pool region was the most affected in the country's series of civil wars between 1998 and 2003.

    The war pitted the national army against former rebel leader Pasteur Ntoumi's ninja figthers. The signing of a peace agreement between Ntoumi's party, Le Conseil national des républicains (CNR) and the government, in March 2003, ended the conflict.

    Ntoumi was appointed general delegate in charge of the promotion of peace and post-conflict reconstruction by presidential decree in May 2007 but is yet to take up his post. His party is calling for the formation of a security commission comprising law enforcement officers, ex-combatants and representatives of the civil society and human rights organisations.

    "If the reverend has still not taken [up] his post it is because of lethargy on the part of the government. The ball is in the government's court," CNR spokesman, Euloge Mpassi, said. "Ntoumi is still ready to come to Brazzaville to take up his position."

    However, according to the commissioner in charge of the reintegration of ex-combatants, Michel Ngakala, Ntoumi had not returned to Brazzaville simply because he did not wish to.

    "The war ended and he is free to move anywhere," Ngakala said. "Given that Ntoumi will take up the role as a civilian, he does not need any special formal provisions in order to be installed."

    "Taking up a civilian role does not require such structures which risk complicating the situation," he said.

    Initially, Ntoumi was scheduled to return to the capital on 10 September

    2007 to take up his post, after spending at least 10 years in the bush.

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    Despite improved security in the region, Ntoumi's ex-combatants are still terrorising the people in Pool, according to the director of the Congolese human rights watchdog, Roger Bouka Owoko.

    At least 5,000 of Ntoumi's forces are expected to take part in the country's demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration programme.

    [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]






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