MUSIC: Yvonne Darcq's Fire

Yvonne Darcq (YDQ) urges all of us who care to listen: "Don't start a fire, huwezi zima!" [Don't start a fire you can't (huwezi) put out (zima)]. Mmmm. That's zima, not Zuma, OK?

Fire is a surprisingly 'high-definition' song, visually and aurally. 'Dropped' only on December 3, 2015 -- just under two weeks ago -- it has 1,914 views so far. I think this number will rise steadily as more and more folks tune it.

A confession: I didn't think much of YDQ in Ooh Lala Oui Oui, a song she released earlier this year with the talented and hard-working Diva, Victoria Kimani. But Fire, something of a controlled blast, is a pleasant discovery, from the very start. It forces a reassessment of the earlier song by the likes of me. Bravo!

YDQ thus joins the Legion from the East which seems poised to stealthily offer a refreshing alternative to the Nigerian juggernaut, while South African artistes seemingly continue, in the main, to grope in the dark for a winning genre.

A strong eastern counter-force to the Nigerian wave can only enrich African music overall, don't you think. It may, indeed, prompt the Nigerians to reach even higher than then so far have.

I think I see early signs that we're about to reach a musical critical mass -- to witness a burst of awesome creativity in all directions -- here in Africa. Waiting with bated breath.

But we do need about 50 or so actively creative sorts from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda to have the effect I have in mind. That is, fifty or so artistes each releasing 3 or 4 singles each year.

Click Here: A very useful bio of Yvonne Darq by Bottomline Kenya

Mbeki's Ouster

The other week, with barely seven months to the constitutional end to his second term, Thabo Mbeki was forced by and from within his own party, ANC, to resign from the high office of President of South Africa, one of Africa's economic and political powerhouses. There is something really rotten and unbecoming about the process that led to his departure, barely a week after Zuma won his corruption case in court, and South Africa is the poorer for it.

This is not to say that Mbeki did not make any, indeed big, mistakes while in office; or that he did not display in just too many instances a weakness of leadership by way of indecisiveness, plain bad judgement and a failure to inspire in consequential ways. It is even plausible that he had slyly sought to encumber and destroy Zuma politically -- and perhaps personally. Still, he was the country's president; and it was important for Zuma to realize that how one handled such factualities could have far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions on a country's political culture. The burden of statesmanship here, after Zuma's court victory (which essentially ensured that he would be South Africa's next president next April), was on Zuma himself -- far less on Mbeki, who was already and clearly a lame duck. To the victor sometimes, as here, go spoils which are not worth the trouble.

Zuma flunked the test, and dragged South Africa down with him into a gutter in which such a country, with so much promise, need not be. Mbeki's ouster displayed a disturbing sense of vengefulness, and myopic disregard for the inclusiveness and "above-the-fray" demeanour of South Africa's recent political (and, in particular, presidential) history -- that is, since 1990.

Mandela succeeded De Klerk (fellow Nobel laureate) in a peaceful and organized transition to become South Africa's president in 1994. He chose not to seek a second term in 1998, to the great admiration of all around the world. With his blessing, Mbeki succeeded him in the elections held that same year, although many would have preferred the trade unionist and (increasingly?)self-made Ramaphosa. However, with the end of Mbeki's term in plain sight, a coup -- a political coup, a palace coup clearly engineered or endorsed by none other than Zuma!

Zuma seems "programmed" to think small, and that spells trouble for South Africa -- and perhaps Africa. His thinking, it seems to me, emanates from the same source(s) as the xenophobic orgy which gripped South Africa less than a couple of months ago. Can he be helped out of this dance with danger?

Zimbabwe: Power-Sharing and Triple Redemption

The recent power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe, brokered by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, is a cause for optimism for the future of governmentality in Zimbabwe, but more importantly of its long-suffering citizens in the complexity of their day-to-day lives. Skeptical as many observers were that such a deal was at all possible -- Mugabe had been so demonized, particularly in pronouncements out of London and Washington, and had so demonized himself (in rantings out of his own mouth) as to make hope for any sensible outcome of the elections itself hopeless -- there you are! We (let me use that plural and all-inclusive word) do have a deal; as good a deal as such products of political manoeuvre can be. Indeed, for Tsvangirai, a better deal nominally (in fact qualitatively, as some may insist) than Kenya's Raila brokered for himself and ODM last March.

So here we are. One obvious consequence of the deal is, to me, a triple redemption of sorts for the principals. Mugabe has succeeded in brokering his own redemption. He has recouped a measure of the social (and/or political) capital that had so precipitously eroded from his bleeding hands -- certainly in African eyes. Now, we can and will all bury him, when the time comes, without equivocation. Raila will most likely attend, perhaps with 100 bulls in tow, and with such flamboyance and depth of engagement in these matters as only he, in all of Africa, can muster.

Mbeki, likewise, has redeemed himself from the self-inflicted and precipitous slide into ignominy and ineffectualness which had been, particularly in the last year or two (if we say nothing of his quaint narrative of the causality of HIV/Aids), the hallmark of his leadership in South Africa (remember South Africa's xenophobia against fellow Africans, remember the Zuma case) and Africa as a whole (remember Darfur). In Zimbabwe, he snatched victory and optimism from the jaws of defeat and defeatism, and of pessimism. Now he can ride into that sunset, which we will all ride into -- if we are lucky to be alive when the sun sets -- with the knowledge that, whatever mars his presidential record, he will always be remembered with some fondness by all who think and remember deeply.

Tsvangirai, whom I had thought a coward when he called off his campain for the run-off elections, has redeemed himself in my eyes and, it is obvious to me, the eyes of millions of Zimbabweans. He has redeemed himself not so much in securing a deal (any coward can do that), but a good deal -- at least on paper. The taste of the pudding is in the eating, of course, but you can't eat your cake if you don't have (or bake) it! He has the ingredients, though there will be delays such as we have already witnessed -- and perhaps power outages.

Zimbabweans insist on a view that they are not Kenyans, which they are and are not, and that they do their things differently -- and perhaps in a more dignified way. The jury is out. There are many hints in the Zimbabwean deal that the Kenyan model was very much on the minds of the negotiators. Tsvangirai probably secured a better deal because Raila's, which he was clearly aware of, was in the eyes of many bad. This capacity for a quantum leap is the late-comer's advantage. Likewise, Mugabe was probably inclined to give Tsvangirai (his Oliver Twist) more because Kibaki's selfishness would be seen by history to have been greater -- in which case, on that score, Mugabe would not be at the bottom of African history's list. Did Mbeki whisper that prospect in his ear, I would like to know?