Word: zuma
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Gender advocates say that the 2006 rape trial of prominent politician Jacob Zuma was incredibly damaging to their cause. Zuma, who was elected President this year, was tried and acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend. He told the court that the woman had dressed provocatively, in a traditional wrap-around kanga, and that it was against Zulu culture for a man to leave a sexually aroused woman unsatisfied. (See a profile of South African president Jacob Zuma...
...Zuma's plainspoken views as a polygamist and a traditionalist appeal to many men who feel adrift in a society that defines men by the material trappings they attain, says Aernout Zevenbergen, author of Spots of a Leopard, a book on masculinity in Africa that is soon to be released in English. "Rape is a signal of a society that is sick to the core," Zevenbergen says. He points to South Africa's long history of migrant labor, in which men left home to work in the mines, as having broken apart generations of families. This system set the stage...
What about all the dire predictions, particularly in the British press, about South Africa under Zuma becoming the new Zimbabwe? Mugabe is Zimbabwe and has been for 29 years. South Africa is far more sophisticated. It has big business, big independent media and big independent civil society. The government is only one of many determinants of South Africa's future...
What about "Bring me My Machine Gun?" Zuma's theme song? It's a little insensitive to have a tribal war song as your campaign anthem. But, ach, man, the Marseillaise? Read those lyrics. Bar a little residual union militancy, the French turned...
...watch this space, then? Right. Zuma is still an unknown quantity. His appointments only give a small clue as to how his government will be. But keep watching. South Africa is Africa's political and economic heavyweight. It sets the tone for much of Africa. What happens here matters - and that will be especially true in the coming year...