world
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When the Tsunami Hit
On Dec. 26, 2004, at least 230,000 people died when the second-largest earthquake in recorded history erupted beneath the Indian Ocean, triggering a devastating series of waves. Places as far apart as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Somalia were affected. Nearly two-thirds of those who perished were from the Indonesian province of Aceh. I worked in…
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Wole Soyinka on Obama's Choice
The saddest song to have come out of Africa in recent times was actually composed as a song of celebration, written to mark the ascendancy of an African American to the presidency of the United States of America. It was a musical tribute by a Kenyan, and the lyrics say simply: “It is easier for…
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Dining Without the Dictator
Barack Obama and his family will touch down in Accra, Ghana this weekend, and while it’s significant that Obama comes to Africa as the first American president of African descent, the trip will have none of that Return-to-the-Motherland feel, in part because he’s already done that (see Dreams from My Father). Nor will it produce…
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Not Free At Last
Just as many Americans are feeling better about the state of our democracy, it appears that democracy in some parts of the world is not faring so well. In the release of its annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House, an independent U.S. non-profit organization in support of freedom and democracy the…
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Sister Loss
My sister Annie Ruth Walker Hood died the morning of Dec. 27, 2008: Throughout the four days leading up to her death in Hospice, friends and I sat in ceremony, thousands of miles away, chanting, praying, meditating and speaking at times to her spirit and soul. It was a difficult transition for her; at the…
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Where's South Africa's Obama?
One by one, South Africa’s Moses Generation is dying out—there was another funeral last Saturday—and its demise is raising uncomfortable questions about the yet-to-emerge Joshua Generation to lead South African into its Promised Land. These biblical references arise out of a speech Barack Obama delivered in Selma, Alabama last year, when the then 46-year-old Obama acknowledged…
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A Bitter South African Divorce
Out of the frying pan into the frying pan… That’s what I thought when I returned to South Africa after four months of sizzling U.S. politics. My adopted home in South Africa is also sizzling with the sounds of change. The breaking news is the breakup of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), the oldest…
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Trapped in the 'Heart of Darkness'
In late 1874, Henry Morton Stanley—he of the pith helmet and “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”—set off west from Zanzibar with 356 porters, guides and camp followers, determined to fill in many of the lingering gaps in the map of Africa. Exactly 999 days and about 5,000 harrowing miles later, he reached the Atlantic, having lost all…
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Rising to the Moment
It’s always a bittersweet time for me when I leave my home in Martha’s Vineyard for my home in Johannesburg; home being a place where you have people and things you love, as I do in both these places. With some sadness, I say “so long” to friends I drank and dined with or with…
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The Sun Does Not Dance on Africa
The Sundance Institute recently embarked upon a five-year commitment toward “developing” East African theatre, in the hopes of doing what they have achieved with American Indie Film. I was among those invited to participate in the initial East African workshops, held last spring. The program, according to Sundance, seeks to expand the scope of American…