The age of Zuma

dong20

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As he is sworn in, the question is ... who will be his first lady?

If his chequered past is any indication, SA could be in for 'interesting' times.
 
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798686

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Lol, that's true. Hasn't he got several on the go at the moment?

Wonder how South Africa will fare under him - and I wonder what his policy towards Zimbabwe will be?
 

dong20

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Lol, that's true. Hasn't he got several on the go at the moment?

Wonder how South Africa will fare under him - and I wonder what his policy towards Zimbabwe will be?

Three!

Zuma is certainly no fan of Bob and wasn't a supporter of Mbeke's approach either. Whether this will mean a substantive change remains to be seen.

Mugabe was there, it would have been too much to expect his exclusion - if only because it would overshadow the inauguration itself, and likely alienate many other [African] leaders from day one.

As for SA's future, a number of groups are pinning their hopes on Zuma.
 
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B_Nick8

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Any links for an American who doesn't read as much international news as he should?

It's hardly your fault. American news is so provincial it acts as if nothing outside these shores except perhaps Canada and Mexico (and even then, rarely extending to their politics) matters. That's why I try to watch the BBC.
 

Drifterwood

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It may be my ignorance, but Zuma seems a very African African. Perhaps we shouldn't impose our cultural prejudices as to leadership etc on someone else's culture.

Is he a step forward or a step backwards?
 

dong20

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It may be my ignorance, but Zuma seems a very African African. Perhaps we shouldn't impose our cultural prejudices as to leadership etc on someone else's culture.

Is he a step forward or a step backwards?

Not at all, he is very much an 'African's African' and it's a major factor behind his popularity and [from a western perspective] unlikely political survival. It's hard to imagine a 'western' politican surviving with such a 'past', nevermind making head of Government, but Africans respect strong leadership above all - the quality and direction of that leadership being too often a secondary consideration - the consequences of which are abundant.

Of course there are a raft of reasons behind the train wreck that post colonial Africa became, not least being meddling by former colonial powers and the cold war geopolitical chess game of the 70s and 80s. The west must shoulder a significant proportion of the blame for the state of Africa today - but by no means all of it. Today other interests continue to undermine the continent, plenty from within, but some from without.

Back to Zuma, it's not [IMO] so much a case of imposing a cultural predjudice as an inevitable comparison. Honesty, integrity and accountability tend to be more highly valued in 'western' politicians [although their repeated failure to meet such expectations begs the question why] - that's not to say such traits are not valued by Africans, and expectations are certainly changing in that respect.

Africa still has tribal issues that survive embedded within their political machines - a source of friction the west has [by and large] not really had, or has since eradicated. Again, the effects of tribal affiliation on many, if not most African regimes are self evident.

As for Zuma being a step forward or backward - I'd say he's both.

Let me also add that the above is rather a broad brush - especially the use of 'Africans' - in the same way some use 'Europeans' - it's a wide generalisation and used as such - but I'm in rather a rush and will qualify or illustrate later if necessary.
 
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I wonder what difference it will make to the way SA is governed? So far it hasn't seemed too bad under Mandela and Mbeki - still governed like other developed, Westernised countries (so it seems from the outside anyway).

As Zuma is Zulu and a lot more 'tribal' seeming than the other two - will it adversely affect SA at all?