http://www.laurencecaromba.com Politics, culture and foreign affairs Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:30:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Count me among those who think that the Nobel Committee has made a mockery of itself by awarding the Peace Prize to Barack Obama. I say this, incidentally, as someone who supports many of Obama's foreign policy initiatives. However, even in those cases where Obama's policies are both well-intentioned and ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/10/09/obama-the-nobel-prize/ On paper, the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis seem pretty good right now. In the past, Iranian foreign policy has often appeared wild and unpredictable: Iran has lied about its nuclear facilities and provocatively test-fired missiles, all the while issuing bellicose rhetoric on the evils ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/10/08/is-iran-for-real/ Muammar Gaddafi often comes across as a nutjob, travelling around with his amazon bodyguard and having himself crowned "king of kings". And his long, rambling, intemperate speech at the UN Security Council yesterday certainly contained its fair share of crazy. However, I've suggested before that Gaddafi has more tactical acumen ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/09/24/i-believe-thats-what-international-diplomats-call-a-dick-move/ Khaya Dlanga touches on something that has annoyed me about the Brandon Huntley controversy: the extent to which South Africans have engaged in gratuitous Canada-bashing: A lot of people seem to have missed the point. It was not the Canadian government that gave the famed and now much vilified Huntley refugee ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/09/11/blaming-canada/ The South African blogosphere has been overwhelmingly critical of Brandon Huntley and the Canadian immigration board that granted him refugee status. (See Pierre De Vos, Ray Hartley, Michael Trapido, and Sarah Britten, to name just a few.) However, I think that in the rush to bash Huntley for the sin ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/09/10/is-racial-violence-worse-than-violence/ Eusebius McKaiser and Sasha Polakaw-Suranksky try to make sense of Barack Obama's Africa policy: Obama's Africa policy is essentially premised on the promotion of -- insistence on, even -- good governance. This policy is touted not just as an intrinsic good for Africa but also, as Hillary Clinton said at the ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/08/18/obamas-africa-policy/ A few weeks ago, I was discussing the launch of the Palm Pre with my friend Darren. I like the Pre, and he does too. I would rather have one of these than an iPhone, even though by all accounts the build quality of the hardware isn't that great. It ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/08/12/american-cars-vs-american-cellphones/ Marc Lynch's Foreign Policy article on rap feuds as a metaphor for international relations is well worth reading. A sample: Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is the closest thing to a hegemon which the rap world has known for a long time. He's #1 on the Forbes list of the top earning ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/08/09/the-art-of-war/ Michael Gerson, one of the primary architects of Bush's big-government "compassionate conservatism", defends needle-exchange programmes for heroin addicts: They are also at the center of a controversy. Needle-exchange programs have always been politically controversial, with opponents arguing that they send a mixed moral message about drug use. The House of Representatives ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/08/07/the-costs-and-benefits-of-needle-exchange/ I watched the new Harry Potter movie yesterday, and thought it was pretty good. I'm not sure it was good enough to justify its 78 score on Metacritic, but it's competently executed, and the film-makers have largely succeeded in their efforts to create a darker Harry Potter that corresponds with ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/30/the-strategic-logic-of-harry-potter/ Andrew Sullivan joins the calls for Obama to release his "original birth certificate": So many readers are furious that I have dared to ask the president to show the original copy of his birth certificate. The reason for demanding it is the same reason for demanding basic medical records proving Sarah ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/30/should-conspiracy-theories-be-indulged/ I'll be on CNBC tomorrow at 6:30am, discussing Libyan foreign policy. http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/28/fyi/ During Thabo Mbeki's presidency, I argued on several occasions that South Africa's confrontational foreign policy towards the United States did not advance our national interests, to which the then-Department of Foreign Affairs essentially responded by saying that this was a lie, and that their US policy was not confrontational at ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/27/foreign-policy-has-consequences/ Peter Singer has an article in the New York Times Magazine, arguing that healthcare should be rationed in order to keep costs down. Peter Suderman at Reason Magazine disagrees: [T]he QALY standard results in an essentially command-and-control approach to health-care distribution: Rather than let individual preferences and agreements work out prices ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/23/who-decides-the-value-of-life/ Read this account of the Judicial Services Commission, in which a seemingly thoughtful and knowledgeable judge candidate is subjected to a series of attacks over his religious views, his race, the fact that he's not part of the same club as one of his interlocutors, and a trumped-up accusation that ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/22/speaking-of-the-judiciary/ Critics of "transformation" in South African society often argue that the transformation process, ostensibly intended to redress the injustices of apartheid, is in reality designed to entrench the ANC's hold on political power. Without weighing in on that particular debate, I will say how I surprised I am that Cosatu's ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/21/cosatu-political-power/ Steven Friedman critiques the public criticism of Peter de Villiers: The problem is not that people criticise De Villiers — or Percy Sonn or Norman Arendse or black lawyers and business people whose names come to mind: in a free society everyone can criticise everyone else. It is that they are ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/17/imputing-racism-to-others/ Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes about leadership, in a long paragraph that deserves to be quoted in full: Gandhi thought people should generally be nicer to Untouchables but other than that the caste system was just fine, and the best way forward for India was to eradicate modern technology and revert to an ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/15/the-flaws-of-great-leaders/ (Note: I'm back! My sincere thanks Mayibuye Magwaza for maintaining this blog in my absence.) Eusebius Mckaiser in the Mail & Guardian discusses the future of COPE, a political party that has been so quiet since the election that most people could be excused for forgetting its existence. Although his diagnosis is ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/13/diagnosing-cope/ by Mayibuye Magwaza This will probably be my last post - Laurence should be back soon. South Africa's Constitution is on a pretty high pedestal in South African political discourse. We are informed that it is progressive and wonderful and in general, it's rarely questioned or challenged. This is good, to the extent ... http://www.laurencecaromba.com/2009/07/10/removing-the-right-to-dignity/