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/ 18 December 2007
This morning, facing too many deadlines, I found my brain blocked. I have been reading all three fat Mandela books, trying to find something to say for a commissioned article. In the midst of my writer’s block I have been searching for a high by following the Obama campaign on the internet and ignoring our own political frenzy here in Kenya, for this time it has no grace.
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/ 19 November 2007
In the fevered talk these days about religion and secularism, there is little room for the thing Africans like me most fear: religious or cultural rationalism. Outside of tiny labs the general ignorance about science, even among people with good educations, is very high. I remember a famous Afrikaans rugby player, a medical doctor, saying in the 1990s that science had determined that black people could not swim — something to do with muscles and heavy bones.
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/ 5 November 2007
Last week Kenya’s newly selected cardinal — and for reasons that are obscure to me, we have not had one in a while — came out to declare that the Catholic Church opposes majimboism. To its supporters, majimboism is a kind of federalism; to its detractors it looks a lot like ethnic regionalism.
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/ 22 October 2007
I am in Oslo, where we have been talking about New Images from Africa with a lot of people who know about such things. Mo Ibrahim, the mobile phone billionaire, spoke to us about his foundation, which has launched an index measuring how countries in Africa are governed. Later this year they will unveil a prize to be awarded to democratically elected presidents who step down after democratic elections.
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/ 20 September 2007
For the past few years I have tried to understand what makes me so fear the country called the United Kingdom. London, that great multicultural city leaves me incoherent with anger sometimes, confused many times. Many of my friends love the place. I used to, but, over the years, I have found myself wanting to be there less and less.
It seems, despite the best efforts to manufacture our nations, that things will be built from the ground up. I have spent the past few months travelling around West Africa and everywhere where people have created enclaves of coherence there is growth and progress.
I am pleased to announce that a new species of bird, the African pheasant, was recently discovered by French wildlife enthusiast Nicolas Sarkozee. After years of carefully observing pheasants from all over the world, he visited West Africa and spent time in the jungle, noting carefully the features of this curious bird.
The occasion of the Cape Town Book Fair seems a good time to reflect on the new world of African literature. I was in Arusha a few days ago and spent a series of memorable evenings with some remarkable Africans, many of them Nigerians. And late, late into the night, people started to talk about Biafra.
Years ago I had a conversation with somebody in Cape Town who was helping to develop a tourism marketing plan. She told me that the largest number of tourists to South Africa came from the continent and that they spent the most money. None of this was the result of a plan — at least up to that point.
Two weeks ago, two people of ”Indian origin” were beaten to death by a crowd in Kampala, Uganda. The crowd rioted because the Mehta Group, a huge multinational with significant investments in Uganda, has asked to be allocated one-third of the Mabira Forest Reserve, one of the country’s last remaining natural forests. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni supports giving away this rich source of biodiversity.