Bestowing an honor on the US’ first black president might seem an uncontroversial choice for post-apartheid South Africa. However, what was good enough for the Nobel peace prize committee is just the latest trigger for acrimony in the polarized city of Cape Town.
Its decision to grant US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, the freedom of the city has provoked a growing backlash from rival parties, churches, Muslim groups and trade unions, who branded it a “political gimmick.”
They say that if the couple ever set foot in Cape Town to accept the award, they will be greeted by mass protests drawing attention to the US’ human rights record.
The dispute began a month ago when Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, a member of South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), announced the nomination of the Obamas for the city’s highest accolade.
“For this city, as for the entire world, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are the guiding stars to our eventual destination,” she said. “In a cynical age, there is a desperate need for universal hope — hope that acts as a reminder that, no matter what the odds, even the supposedly unattainable is within our grasp.”
Michelle Obama had traveled to Cape Town last year during a tour of Africa.
To some, the award seemed in keeping with a longstanding relationship between the US civil rights and South African liberation movements: Barack Obama has recalled that his first taste of political activism was speaking at an anti-apartheid rally. In the immediate afterglow of his 2008 election victory, it may have struck a popular chord. Now, however, South Africans have doubts.
Tony Ehrenreich, the provincial secretary of Congress of South African Trade Unions in western Cape, said he was “appalled” at the award, citing “the atrocious behavior of the USA on the Palestinian question, and their endorsement of Israel aggression against the people of Palestine.”
Ehrenreich, who as the candidate of the governing African National Congress (ANC) was defeated by De Lille in the last mayoral election, accused her of ignoring the majority of Capetonians.
“Obama has done nothing for the city of Cape Town that in our view deserves the freedom of the city, as he does not represent the value system of the city people of justice and fairness,” Ehrenreich said.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
RSS