As noted last week, Zuma's visit to the UK gave plenty of things for the media to talk about: from his sex habits, marriage arrangements and the British's empire mentality. But there was much more. Zuma used his visit to ask Gordon Brown to support the lifting of Zimbabwe sanctions; this is, the "travel bans and asset freezes imposed by the EU and the US on Robert Mugabe and his allies" and still in place, and which serve, he argued, "only to divide the already fragile power-sharing government in Zimbabwe". This generated an interesting debate on The Guardian, regarding the usefulness of sanctions in the Zimbabwean case. Thus, last Wednesday Blessing Miles-Tendi wrote an article titled "Zuma's right on Zimbabwe", in which he supported the lifting of sanctions and argued that these "are not only internally divisive but iniquitous and obstructive to democracy". You can read the full article here.

South African president Jacob Zuma. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP (via The Guardian)

This article prompted Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch, to response, witing a letter in which he argued: “Blessing-Miles Tendi blames the EU targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies for the failure of last year's power-sharing deal to bring about the hoped-for political transformation in Zimbabwe. That is absurd. The evidence that Zanu-PF continues to violate the agreement is overwhelming. In the past year MDC activists have been killed and abducted. Legislators and journalists have been arrested on spurious charges. Repressive media laws remain in place. Illegal invasions of commercial farms continue. Zanu-PF continues to use its control of the army, police and security sector to persecute its opponents. Just this week journalist Andrison Shadreck Manyere was arrested for filming political detainees outside a courthouse and union leader Gertrude Hambira fled the country fearing for her life after her offices were ransacked by police. Easing EU sanctions now will simply reinforce the repression in Zimbabwe.”

Continuing the debate, yesterday Miles-Tandi responded, with what I consider to be and extremely insightful criticism of the limitations of how human rights discourse is applied in political crisis, and especially, regarding Zimbabwe. Here are some excerpts:“Porteous either failed to comprehend my article or he is in the habit of making kneejerk responses, because nowhere do I make the assertion that sanctions are the sole reason for the failure of the "power-sharing deal to bring about the hoped-for political transformation"… My argument is that sanctions must be lifted in order to rob Zanu PF of a key propaganda and negotiating plank, which it has used to weaken internal opposition and as a pretext for the non-implementation of democratic reforms… However, the most disconcerting aspect of Porteous's response is not its misrepresentation of my views but that it shows how, for four reasons, the human rights movement remains intellectually ill-equipped to deal with Zanu PF…

First, Porteous… does not stop to ask whether targeted sanctions have had any effect in deterring Zanu PF's human rights violations. Sanctions have been in place since 2002, but Robert Mugabe still stole the 2002 and 2008 presidential elections. Sanctions did not dissuade the Zanu PF government from violently seizing white-owned commercial farms... carrying out Operation Murambatsvina…Journalists, the opposition and civil society have faced untold repression under the EU sanctions' watch…

Second, Porteous' insistence on the maintenance of sanctions that clearly do not have the desired effect reflects how the human rights movement lacks ingenuity in confronting Zanu PF's human rights violations...For a decade, we have isolated the Zanu PF government, attacked its excesses and applied targeted sanctions. Zanu PF has only become more belligerent and its human rights abuses have worsened…

Third, the human rights movement has struggled to deal with the problem that the very same actors, such as the EU, that it has urged to maintain sanctions on Zimbabwe do not apply the same human rights standards everywhere and are themselves gross human rights violators. This is a very important shortcoming because external attempts at protecting the human rights of a given populace are undermined if they are accompanied by selectivity and hypocrisy. ...

Fourth, the human rights movement has not fully appreciated the sophisticated nature of Mugabe and Zanu PF. Zanu PF has invested sustained intellectual labour in attacking the idea of human rights…The human rights movement in Zimbabwe and internationally has failed to articulate a compelling defence of the validity of human rights in the country. As a result, intellectual space has been ceded to Zanu PF's public intellectuals.

In my opinion this constitues an excellent summary of the shorcomings of the current approach to the Zimbabwean crisis - shortcoming that only reinforce Mugabe's position. This situation in Zimbabwe continued to be tense, with a fragile national unity government, harrasment of activists and politicians, and continued power-abuses from ZANU-PF. But sanctions, in place since 2002 do not appear to have made the situation better, rather the opposite, as Miles-Tandi argues, giving ideological ammunition to Mugabe's camp. What Human Rights activist sometimes forget - something that directly results from the very nature of the Human Rights discourse - is that politics is often a messy affais, that calls for compromises, and that in order to exert any change you need to have leverage of some sort. Undoubtedly, complying with the international Human Rights framework gives you a certain degree of leverage, and wins you international support from Western powers. But in many cases - such as Zimbabwe - this is not enough because on the national sphere this discourse is confronted and over-powered by Mugabe's interested use of anti-imperialist rhetoric.

A more fruitful approach then will be, as Miles-Tandi suggests and I agree, to adopt a more flexible political position - instead of a manichean "you-either-fully-comply-with-human-rights-requirements-or you-will-be-considered-a-pariah" approach, which highlights the double standards existing in the international sphere (see Afghanistan). Following this, the international community's best chance may be to rely on Zuma to act as intermediate in making ZANU-PF comply with the powersharing agreement. Understandably, there is a reticiency to do this, given the failure of Mbeki's "constructive engagement" policy. Nevertheless, there appears to be a certain, albeit slight, change in South Africa's foreign policy towards Zimbabwe as this SAIIA article notes:"Zimbabwe remains South Africa’s most immediate foreign policy challenge. Zuma’s more cordial relations with Morgan Tsvangirai, his tougher stance at the November 2009 Maputo SADC Summit and his replacement of Mbeki as mediator by Charles Nqakula, Mac Maharaj and Lindiwe Zulu later that month heralds, for some, a definite break with the past, although it is early days."

Photograph: Desmond Kwande/AFP/Getty Images (via The Guardian)

Furthermore, as the "Blue Lines" section signals in the latest Africa-Confidential (here, no suscription required), Zuma's team "has made some headway in negotiations on political and security issues" and "is searching for leverage with Mugabe, suggesting that sanctions could be quickly reimposed if pledges are not kept" (a much more interesting dynamic than keeping the sanctions). Sanctions on Zimbabwe, this article continues, are in fact "under review: its voting rights at the IMF have been restored. The IMF and the World Bank are working on a plan to tackle its arrears and speed up disbursement for the short term recovery programme – despite the United States’ and Britain’s veto on loans. That too may change after some diplomatic clodhopping. Last year, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that it was up to the MDC to decide when sanctions were lifted. Since then, Premier Morgan Tsvangirai has written to EU leaders calling for a general review of sanctions and Finance Minister Tendai Biti has asked the EU to lift sanctions on eight specific companies; it quickly complied. However, the last set of sanctions – the targeting of ZANU-PF officials and their business friends – is likely to stand for many months yet."

It is therefore clear that the stand-off in Zimbabwe has been paralysing for the country's situation, and that a new something needs to be done. And that the sanctions, in place since 2002 have not worked. It does not therefore seem such a crazy idea then, to give it a go at trying new ideas, like lifting the sanctions...

- BarCamp Abidjan has just begun!! And it will be on, until Sunday. You can follow live updates on Twitter from @africamps, or through the tag #bcbabi. Looking forward to all the sessions and talks!!

- Regarding African politics this week, well, no one can doubt the man's entertainment value. This week Zuma visited the UK, where he accused the British media of seeing Africans as "barbaric". Not only Zuma's personal life, but also his attitude, declarations, and the state of South African politics led to plenty of comments on the media - from the ridiculous (the Daily Mail column that rightly ofended Zuma), to this article by Mark Gevisser and even today's editorial on The Guardian (partly siding with Zuma in criticising the media's "undertone of imperial snobbishness" and a "British national weakness for thinking of foreign leaders in the most simplistic, comic-book terms".

- Togolese elections yesterday, apperaed to have gone smoothly. For all the information tune to the African Elections Togo site - here

- After China and India, attention now turns to new "emergent" powers in Africa - Iran (and Israel). See this article on the Economist and this one by the Deutsche-Welle.

- This week's issue of Pambazuka News carries plenty of interesting articles, on various topics such as Zimbabwe's unity government's staggering from pillar to post, (incidentally, we have also recently learnt that external support for the regime is in decline, after China affirmed it does not consider Zimbabwe a "friend"); US interference in Nigeria's constitutional crisis; how Abahlali baseMjondolo is gathering strengthafter the Kennedy Road evictions and a Campaign for democracy in Swaziland.

- Global Voices carries this week two interesting articles on the topic - first is a mention to this very interesting article on Afromusing from early February (which I read at the time but forgot to share), and also this piece by Rebekah Heacock on whether "Is ICT all it's cracked up to be?". She discusses how, in Sudan for example, some ICT4D (ICT for development) initiatives that are all the hype at the moment, have failed to produce results. A test to see how far citizen involvement on politics can go, she argues, will be the forthcoming Sudanese elections. And just to prove the point of ICT4D being fashionable, the World bank has launched "a new online game, Evoke, to channel gamer obsession and time (3 billion hours per week) into solving Africa's problems" (via Bombastic Element)

- Away from politics, A Bombastic Element has an entry on the latest news and initiatives around Bushpunk (definition here), and on the recently concluded Design Indaba.

- And Africa Is A Country shares his enthusiasm for the forthcoming Pop Africana Magazine.

Click on the picture to see the magazine's site

Now that I have a faster internet connection and a bit of time on my hands as it's too cold for me to enjoy doing anything outside the house, I find myself browsing through photographer's websites that I had been bookmarking for months. Here are a few of South Africa that I particularly enjoyed, mostly because they show very different sides of the country.

Lebogang Nkoane

This is how he defines himself in his website:

When I was child I asked my grandmother, whilst walking back from 'goga metse', "what was on the moon? She replied, "an old woman with a bucket of water on her head walking back home with a child." I still believe that to this day. Her name is Sinah Ntholi Nkoane and I am that child.

I am lebogang nkoane. I am merely exploring photography.

Btw, you can also follow him on Twitter at @LTDN (which is how I found his photography in the first place).

Russel Thokozani Kana

I don't really know much about this photographer, only that I think he's based in Johannesburg and that he has amazing abstract compositions that remind me of cubist painters like Mondrian.

Zanele Muholi

This Johannesburg-based photographer became famous for her series of portraits of black lesbians which she started in 2007, challenging the public's perceptions of female and male identity. She then continued with a series of intimate scenes of the domestic life of black lesbian couples in South Africa, such as the triptych below.

Sabelo Mlangeni

Another Johannesburg-based photographer, but again with a completely different style. In this case, the series that gave him popularity was Invisible Women, of women cleaning the inner city of Johannesburg which he photographed over an eight-month period at night between 11pm and 3.30am.

More recently he showed a series titled Men Only, focusing on the George Goch hostel on the East Rand of Johannesburg built in 1961 to house migrant mineworkers. Only men are allowed in such hostels, and in the collective imaginary they are places of violence, sexual abuse and illegal trafficking. They are also places where the legacy of apartheid is still clearly evident, despite the gains of the past 15 years of democracy. Mlangeni says:

It is these imaginings that led me to photograph life in these buildings, going beyond the stereotypes and trying to capture the normality that exists in an abnormal, unnatural situation.' Men's hostels are not easily approachable places, both practically and visually, and, Mlangeni says, 'my curiosity and maleness weren't enough to gain me access to this private world'. It took him two years to develop the trust and familiarity needed to show the residents' lives with honesty and clarity.

Nontsikelelo Veleko

Veleko became popular thanks to her Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, a series of bold, funky street fashion portraits providing a contemporary face to South Africa.

Nicholas Aldridge

This is what this Cape Town-based photographer says about himself:

Extremely verastile and adaptable photographer with an easy way with people.

My goal is to change the way people see their differences and what makes them unique.

To travel the world and show new and exciting perspectives on the planet we live on.

[h/t Africa's a country]

In the media today, many Africans, Europeans, and Americans rave about the increased Chinese presence in Africa. According to the Tehran Times, which like the BBC, reported Ugandan President Paul Kagame’s speech on Chinese investment in Africa, in 2003 investment from China in Africa stood at $491million and rose to $7.8billion last year. Many Africans fear that increased interest in Africa is a new kind of colonialism where our resources are being sold for unequal value in order to fuel China’s rapidly growing economy. The general European reaction can be interpreted as having fear of Chinese competition for Africa’s immense resources as they don’t like having their historical playground disturbed. The Americans feel similar to the Europeans but they are angrier about Chinese influence in Africa and more recently in Latin America and the Middle East because it is seen as a direct challenge to US hegemony and they are not amused. All these perspectives have merit but from I have a very different viewpoint on how Africans can look at Chinese actions.

What the Chinese are doing is purchasing natural resources from African countries in exchange for either cash or large constructions of infrastructure. Plain and simple. The Chinese do not care if our governments are democratically elected or whether those governments care for their people or whether they ask for fair value for their commodities. I as an African have no problem with this. The Chinese are not like the Americans and Europeans who try to play God with us and decide to withhold “aid” or investment if we don’t show them that we are worthy of it by practicing “good” government. Why do the Americans criminalize Zimbabwe or Sudan for having bad undemocratic governments when they trade freely with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and the other various oil producing giants in the Middle East who are as far from democracy as Pluto is from the Sun? The Chinese don’t get on our case because they are in no morale position to talk about good democratic government as they are not a democracy and have never tried to say they were or hide their lack of democracy. They are in Africa to get what they want and if we Africans sell them these materials then there is no problem.

Furthermore, in my opinion, there are many positives that stem from this investment in Africa by the Chinese. In the case of Angola, the two countries signed a large oil deal in 2006 that can be worth an estimated 9 billion of dollars if certain targets for production in the treaty can be reached (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5080626.stm). According to the same BBC report, this is money that Angola can use to build better roads, improve a lagging school system, and upgrade and expand a broken infrastructural system. This country desperately needs this type of investment as it is just six years removed from a crippling civil war that destroyed its production and development potential.

However, in the same report, people have questioned whether this money will actually be used the way the Angolan government has been said it will be used. Will it get to the people and institutions that need it the most? There is no question that there is rampant corruption in the Angolan government and the divide between the rich and poor is large. But, this is not the problem of the Chinese. It is the problem of the Angolan government and its people who they are suppose to represent. Should the Chinese government demand that this money make it to the people who need it before it flows into the country? Maybe. Should the Angolan government have charged a higher price for its oil? Probably. But since neither party did that, a fair deal was signed and the world needs to respect that.

Now, I do believe that African countries who sell these natural resources should get higher value for them. I do believe we could charge more for our resources and obtain more financial help from China if two things happened. Firstly, if African countries were able to work together and form OPEC-like groups for our natural resources, that way we aren’t competing against each other in the market in the selling of our goods, we could obtain higher prices for our goods. Secondly, we need to take advantage of Chinese, European and American rivalries with each other and see if we can get better deals for our resources. It is clear that there is a demand for the rich mineral resources Africa has from the non-African countries; we must find ways to use this situation for our advantage and extract high prices for our goods.

Furthermore, more needs to be done in Africa to transform our economies from being a raw material based economy to being a manufacturing and tertiary economy. So instead of Namibia, Angola, and Botswana just selling raw diamonds from the ground, we should have our own polishing and cutting industries and have our own jewelers who we sell finished products to. This will increase our own revenues and provide employment to thousands of unemployed in our countries.

However, in conclusion, there is nothing wrong with what the Chinese are doing in Africa. Whenever reading the critiques of the Chinese it is important to understand where these comments are coming from and why. We need to ask ourselves why the issue is framed as a “problem” and in whose best interests is it for this to be framed as such. But no matter what these critics say, in my opinion, African governments and the Chinese are entering into agreements for our natural resources and if our leaders are too naïve to charge fair value for our goods then that is our problem. China is not responsible to ensure that we Africans set “fair” and “just” prices for our goods, this is our responsibility. Gone are the times when we Africans can blame others for our own bad decisions, the time has come for us to take responsibility for our actions and live with the decisions that we make.

Although I have wanted to write about this topic for a while, I had not found the moment or excuse, to do so. However, a piece of news known last week, has made this topic a bit more relevant. Last saturday an agreement was signed in Addis Abeba between the current President of Madagascar, AndrY Rajoelina, and his predecessor Marc Ravalomana, who Rajoelina brought down after a long political crisis last March. Through this agreement, supported by the UN and the AU, both politicians become "co-presidents" of the country. It is surprising here, the position of "co-president", but behind the title hides an institutional model which is becoming more common in the continent. I mean the formation of Governments of Nautional Unity (GNU), as a solution to serious political crises, which often have led to violence. While this solution is not unique to the continent - see the agreements reached in Honduras - the growing popularity of this alternative raises, at least, two series of interesting questions.

Current Madagascar President, Andry Rajoelina (photo AFP)

The first one, more immediately relevant to current affairs, revolves around the question of whether these solutions work, and whether they contribute to a better governence of the country. It is clear that these agreements bring stability to the country. This was the case for example in Kenya, where the agreement between Odinga and Kibaki served to bring an end to the post-electoral violence that caused over 1,000 deaths at the beginning of 2008. But, it needs to be asked whether the price paid for stability is not to high, and whether these agreements serve only to legitmise the continuity in power of leaders that have got (or have maintained themselves) there in a non-democratic manner- Thus, had the popular will, reflected in the votes, been respected in Kenya and Zimbabwe, Kibaki and Mugabe would have abandoned the government after the elections. However, through fraud and violence first, and the signing of GNU agreements after, both remain in power. Leaders like Rajoelina (or Micheletti in Honduras) reached power through the use of violence, and through these agreements achieve certain ligitimacy. It is neccesary then, to be critical with the use that political leaders seeking only to remain in powe, can make of these agreements.

Equally important to determine the extent to which these solutions can be positive, y to analyse the functioning of these GNUs, and their decisions. For example in Zimbabwe, the ZANU-MDC relations are dominated not only by a bitter rivaly, but also by mistrust - and this makes extremely difficult to reach any decision. Furthermore, despite having entered into the GNU, Mugabe continues attacking its functioning, arresting MDC members for example, something that has led Tsvangirai to boycott the agreement (although he backed down from this position later). Another important risk involved in the formation of a GNU is that the leaders of the main political parties (all included now in the government) may become complacent and clientelistic, and that this may lead to a lack of response to the demands from the population. The case of Kenya is particularly revealing: here, the political class, grouped around the Kibaki/odinga government has completely failed in clearing the political and criminal responsabilities for the violence in 2008, and has left this search for responsibilities on the hands of civil society and international institutions like the ICC. As we have mentioned before.

Zimbabwean PM, Morgan Tsvangirai (left), with the President, Robert Mugabe

A second series of questions around these GNUs is less direct, and refers to the model of government most adequate for the different African countries, and the preference for one or another showed by the different actors in the continent - the population, political leaders and the international community. It is particularly interesting the question of whether some of the elements of the political though of leaders of the African independence, like Nyerere or Kaunda, could re-emerge in the African political discourse some time in the future. And, it needs to be noted, the GNUs existing at the moment bear a striking resemblance with the wide coalitions formed by these leaders within their single-party governments. A model which these leaders/theoreticians defended for two reasons. First, as the best way of defending the national unity of these countries - and to contain what they considered a threat from a political pluralism which may give wings to ethnic and regionalist movements. And second, as a way of promoting a form of consensual democracy, not majoritarian, closer for these leadrs, to the ideal of democracy in precolonial Africa in which the "the Elders sit under the big tree and talk until they agree" (Nyerere). These ideas lost relevance in the 1970s as most African governments moved towards authoritarism, and disappeared completely under the wave of multi-party democracy that swept the country - with the support of the international community - in the 1990s.

It is clear that most leaders that promoted single party regimes, ended up doing this this as self-interested decisions, and that the ideas of precolonial democracry were largely idealised. But this should not deny the value of the ideas of "consensual democracy" defended by these leaders (and later by philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu - in his "plea for a no-party polity), seeking a model for African democracy different to the Western one. Neither can this hide the fact that the democracy promoted - together with an eceonomic liberalisation - since the 1990s by different actors has barely resulted in large benefits for the majority of the african population. What is more, in many cases, the democratic transitions have constituted cosmetic reforms directed to an international audience. This has been pointed put brilliantly by the Nigerian political scientist Claude Aké in his book The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa, (Dakar,CODESRIA,2000),, in which he denounces the irrelevance and emptiness of the liberal democracy adopted by african governments - with great degree of international support (or pressure) - and contrasts this with the social democracy - guaranteeing not only political, but also economic rights - trully necessary, and for which the majority of the population fights.

Cover of C. Aké's book.

In conclusion, the appearance of GNUs in diverse countries accross the continent constitutes in my opinion, an interesting process. There are clear risks - as we have pointed ou - which require attention regarding their functioning. But perhaps, if any of these experiments is successful and manges to give to these countries not only stability, but a real benefit for the majority of the population, it may be possible to establish a more open dialogue about the meaning of democracy in Africa, removed from the fetish of multi party elections. A dialogue in which there may be space for ideas that many may believe buried, about social democracy, the redistribution of economic benefits and in which there may be a greater freedom and creativity for the establishment of government institutions trully representative and adequate for the African continent

Un diálogo en el que quepan ideas que muchos quizás creían extinguidas, sobre la democracia social, la distribución de los recursos económicos, y en el que exista una mayor libertad y creatividad a la hora de establecer instituciones de gobierno verdaderamente representativas y adecuadas al continente africano.