Word: african
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Many Americans have dismissed this hair hubbub as simply more media-driven noise - like the chatter about Michelle Obama's sleeveless dresses, J. Crew cardigans, stocking-free legs or, for that matter, recent (shocking!) decision to wear shorts in the Arizona heat. But for African-American women like me, hair is something else altogether - singular in its capacity to command interest and carry cultural baggage. The obsession with Michelle's hair took hold long before Inaugural Ball gowns were imagined, private-school choices scrutinized or organic gardens harvested. It's not that she's done anything outrageous. The new updo...
...afrique, the name given to the relationship between successive governments in Paris and the client regimes that arose across Africa as France swapped colonial control of nations in exchange for arrangements conducive to French political and business interests. For decades, Françafrique produced corrupt and brutal yet stable African partners for France and helped Paris fend off the rival influences of Britain, the U.S. and more recently China. Typically, the authoritarian African leaders who gained from this relationship grew magnificently rich as their people, inversely, became impoverished. And no ruler was more iconic of the so-called...
...that reason, the Bongo succession was viewed as a test of the repeated promises French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made to turn the page on Françafrique by treating African partners as equals - and allowing their voters to decide their destinies for themselves. "If you choose democracy, liberty, justice and law, then France will be with you to construct them," Sarkozy told a crowd of university students in Dakar, Senegal, in July...
...Easier said than done. The following year, Sarkozy replaced his minister dealing with developing nations after the official had infuriated Bongo by promising he'd "sign the death certificate" of Françafrique. Since then, Sarkozy has made several controversial visits to African nations, involving agendas like attending Bongo's funeral, that indicate Françafrique is still alive and well...
...Friday edition of the daily Libération, editorialist François Sergent agreed, urging France to end its "incestuous relations" with the African leaders it has connived with out of "mercantile and political interests." Harking back to Sarkozy's Dakar speech to students in which he promised France's aid in building real, lasting democracies, Sergent asks, Where is Paris now with such help for Gabon...