For anyone who has seen the hit film District 9, it’s no surprise a Nigerian minister would be upset by it.

The science fiction film, set in South Africa, is an allegory on segregation and xenophobia, with alien life forms cooped up in a township of the type that grew up under apartheid and victimised and despised by humans of all descriptions.

No section of human society comes across particularly well, but the Nigerians are crudely caricatured as gangsters, cannibals, pimps, prostitutes and dealers in guns and addictive drugs (in this case cat food). The gang leader’s name sounds exactly like the surname of Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

It’s just a film of course and the slurs needn’t overly detract from the entertainment. (They didn’t for the Nigerian half of my family anyway).

But this does raise a question as to why Nigerians should be seen as fair targets and casually turned into comic book gangsters? Would the film makers have got away with showing other nations or groups in this way? Would they have feared the backlash?

It also raises the question as to what Nigeria can do about really changing its image – beyond rebranding and advertising campaigns.

It could be argued that the immense and undoubted talent of law-abiding Nigerians, the vast majority at home and abroad, does not get the recognition it deserves in the rest of the world despite the acclaim for the greatest Nigerian writers, musicians, footballers and athletes.  Nor may the sacrifice of Nigerians who have given their lives as peacekeepers in Africa and elsewhere.

But we can’t forget that there are still plenty of Nigeria’s 150 million people who have no qualms about giving their country a bad name.

What about the Nigerians imprisoned in Asia and Europe for smuggling drugs? The ‘419’ fraudsters with their email appeals? The kidnappers and oil thieves of the Niger delta? Those politicians who rig elections with fraud, intimidation and bribery? Those officials who see their positions merely as a chance to fill their boots and may be all too ready to subvert the courts or obstruct people struggling to do business fairly?

And how can Nigeria’s image improve while it cannot regularly light up the homes of its people - despite enormous energy resources and billions of dollars spent?

Does Nigeria suffer unfairly from an image problem or will it improve its image once it deals with its problems?

Canada’s decision to grant refugee status to white South African Brandon Huntley has drawn anger from the ruling African National Congress, which described it as racist, and has again stirred the race debate in South Africa 14 years after the end of apartheid.

Huntley had cited persecution by black South Africans as the reason why he could not return to the country of his birth. The chair of the Canadian panel that granted his request said he had shown evidence “of indifference and inability or unwillingness” of South Africa’s government to protect white South Africans from “persecution by African South Africans”.

“I find that the claimant would stand out like a ’sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country,” the chair of the tribunal panel, William Davis, was quoted as saying.

In his application for asylum, Huntley said he had been a victim of multiple crimes by black South Africans and added that white South Africans were a target.

He pointed at the country’s Black Economic Empowerment policies as institutionalised reverse racism that has ensured that he has no opportunities.

The Ottawa Sun described how Huntley first came to Canada to work as a carnival attendant on a six-month work permit in 2004, came back in 2005 and then stayed on illegally until he made a refugee claim in 2008.

Anyone visiting South Africa will certainly see plenty of evidence of white South Africans doing extremely well and generally having a higher standard of living than the majority of black South Africans. White South Africans head many top firms while the highest crime rates are not in the suburbs of the affluent, but in the poor black townships.

Many members of minority groups do complain, however, that they are discriminated against in the Rainbow Nation, led by the ANC since Nelson Mandela took office as president in 1994.

Was Canada justified in giving refugee status to Huntley or was the decision racist? If white South Africans can claim refugee status then who can’t? Is the ANC over-reacting and missing a sign of disaffection by a large minority group?

Have your say.

Eighteen-year-old Mokgadi ‘Caster’ Semenya is being celebrated as a national hero in South Africa after winning the 800 metres at the World Athletics Championships, but the decision by international athletics officials to order a gender verification test has stirred deep anger – and brought accusations of prejudice against the country and the continent.

Many in South Africa feel a victory by their talented young athlete is being tarnished by bad losers and a world all too  ready to mock. Sensitivities to prejudice are never far from the surface in the country where apartheid white minority rule ended just 15 years ago.

South Africans point out that headlines such as “Is she really a HE?”, in Britain’s Daily Mail, and the question of gender verification only surfaced when Semenya started to do much better than her peers.

“It shows that these imperialist countries can’t afford to accept the talent that Africa as a continent has,” the South African Football Players Union said in a message of congratulation to Semenya.

Politicians stepped in too.

“The ANC YL condemns with contempt those who are questioning her gender,” said the ever vocal Youth League of the Ruling African National Congress.

Some even drew parallels between Semenya and an unpleasant episode from the colonial era - Sarah Baartman, a South African woman, was taken from her rural homeland in 1810 and paraded to the world as a freak because of her unusual physical features. Her remains were finally brought back to South Africa in 2002 and laid to rest.

Whatever the results of the officials’ tests on Semenya - and the scientific procedures could take months – most South Africans are convinced that she is not a cheat but a great athlete who will return to a huge welcome.

Making sure South Africans hold their new government accountable is essential if the country is to succeed under Jacob Zuma, believes Mamphela Ramphele, an anti-apartheid activist and prominent South African businesswoman.

“We underestimated what it means to govern a modern democracy,” she told Reuters. “In that context we have made many  mistakes. The first mistake was to conflate the leader, the party, the government and the state. That conflation leads to the undermining of state institutions … and abuse of state resources for party political reasons.”

Ramphele, a doctor and former World Bank official, is among a group of professionals who helped draft three potential scenarios for the country into 2020.

There is a healthy one, of course, in which the government works with business and civil society and is held accountable for its actions and service delivery. After that is one in which the African National Congress government takes a strong role with little opposition - it leads to authoritarian rule. The worst case scenario points to corruption and decay.

Key to success under incoming President Zuma, she believes, is accountability.

“We need to keep the pressure, not pressure to oppose them, but pressure to support, encourage and hold them accountable to deliver on the promises of their election campaigns,” she said.

Although full of complements for Zuma and his abilities, Ramphele also sees positive aspects in the emergence of COPE, the opposition party formed by breakaway ANC members before the election.

She sees is at as a force that will put pressure on the ANC to deliver on problems such as poor education, poverty, the AIDS epidemic and violent crime.

“I can’t imagine any other society with the diversity that we have failing. I can’t imagine any society with the passion that we have as South Africans failing, except if that society refuses to make sure that it’s got leaders that are held to account.”

Pledging to work for national unity is pretty much a formality for any election winner, but in the case of South Africa’s Jacob Zuma it may be more than a platitude. It may need to be.

“The new President of the Republic will be a president for all, and he will work to unite the country around a programme of action that will see an improvement in the delivery of services,” Zuma said after the African National Congress won its sweeping victory.

“We may disagree on how to bring about a better life for all, but what unites us is the fact that this country belongs to all of us, black, white, coloured and Indian equally. We will need to work together on issues that are in the national interest, on which there is no need to compete or permanently bicker.”

Despite the strongest opposition challenge since the end of apartheid, the slick ANC campaign delivered the vote and persuaded a majority of South Africans that the party that has ruled since 1994 could also be the one to deliver change – more action against poverty, crime, AIDS and other concerns.

But unity is always going to be tough in a country with as many divisions as South Africa. The formerly monolithic ANC itself split last year after it ousted former President Thabo Mbeki.

The vote clearly showed up the racial divide 15 years after the end of rule by the white minority.

The vast majority of black Africans had clearly voted for the ANC, whose credentials are still strong for ending apartheid. The voters included those in KwaZulu Natal province, where the Inkatha Freedom Party used to be dominant. Zuma, a son of the soil, definitely helped the party win more votes there.

Coloured and white minorities, however, opted heavily for the opposition Democratic Alliance, which won convincingly in the Western Cape province, where they make up the biggest proportion of the population. Led by Helen Zille, a white woman, the Democratic Alliance has had little success winning over black African voters.

Zuma made great efforts to charm South Africans of all colours before the election, making a particular effort to woo Afrikaners. He also appeared to want to make it more of a priority than Mbeki.

But South Africa’s communities still live their lives very much apart, even if the emergence of a growing black middle class means the divisions along wealth lines no longer correlate as precisely with race as they once did.

When he takes office, Zuma will face demands from all sides – from those who want a greater share of the wealth and more opportunities and from those who feel they are politically marginalised. What could Zuma do to unite South Africa? Can he succeed? Does unity really matter for South Africa anyway?

Pictures: A young ANC supporter waves a flag during victory celebrations in Johannesburg, April 24, 2009. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is mobbed by supporters as she arrives at Cape Town’s airport. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

 
Dr Sehlare Makgetlaneng is the coordinator of the Africa Institute of South Africa’s South African 2009 Election Observation and Monitoring Team. He writes in his personal capacity.

The Zuma administration’s foreign policy will be determined to a great extent by the struggle to satisfy national needs and demands.  These can best be understood if we take into account not only the country’s  increasing level of corruption and violent crime, but also high  level of  expectations  from the urban and rural unemployed, the poor and the working class expecting the qualitative improvement in their material conditions.
     
The Zuma administration will commit itself in practice to the value of continuity in South Africa’s foreign policy. Central to this tradition will be popular foreign policy objectives pursued by South Africa since the end of apartheid.
     
They include support for peaceful resolution of conflict on the African continent and beyond, support for the regional and continental organisations and integration as well as multilateralism. It will continue with the country’s practical and theoretical call for continental socio-political and economic renaissance or transformation.
     
South Africa under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki used the African Renaissance to contribute towards the resolution of conflicts in African countries conducive for the operations of its capital and the realisation of the objectives of its socio-economic policy objectives.
     
It regarded its active participation in conflict resolution as key to peace, security and stability in Africa. It viewed continental socio-economic transformation or renaissance as the process to be achieved through peace and stability creation and consolidation, actions against corruption and implementation of socio-economic policies conducive for the operations of foreign investment.
     
The Mbeki administration was reluctant to lead Africa in international relations. It called for a further integration of Africa into the global capitalist system and African solidarity and unity to fight what Mbeki refers to as global apartheid and to contribute towards an equitable world.
     
These two central aspects of South Africa’s foreign policy, focusing firstly on Africa and secondly on developed countries, raised high level of expectations within Africa and the rest of the world and placed its policy on grounds vulnerable to criticism from individuals with different positions and interests in its efforts to serve as a leader of Africa in its transformation and its relations with the rest of the world particularly developed countries.
     
These problems are a dilemma it faced in its attempts to serve as the representative of Africa to the developed countries and the representative of developed countries in Africa. This policy helped to explain why South Africa under Mbeki was unable to substantiate its declared theoretical position on African Renaissance in practice. It impelled it not to antagonise developed countries in its African Renaissance project and to seek support from weak African countries.
     
Under Mbeki, South Africa put itself on the level that Africa expected more than it could deliver in resolving Africa’s problems.
     
It pretended that it could meet requirements of this expectation. It did not substantiate Mbeki’s progressive position that its role in the resolution of the African conflicts should be guided by the struggle to achieve African transformation in the interests of the masses of the people. South Africa remained central to the consolidation of dominance of Africa by developed countries.
     
The Zuma administration will be a substantial and welcome addition to the struggle against Africa’s problems.
     
It will use the country as the regional and continental power to criticise African leaders who are enemies of their people and strive for free, independent exercise of foreign policy.
     
There will be a shift in the direction towards South Africa realising its potential as a centre of independent development on the African continent.
     
It will be under enormous internal progressive pressure to ensure that the country constitutes a strategic continental threat to the internal and external interests inimical to the interests of the continent and its people.

Nelson Mandela, a global symbol of reconciliation after the end of apartheid in 1994, appeared at the ruling ANC’s last election rally before Wednesday’s vote, delivering a last minute campaign boost for party leader Jacob Zuma.

Wearing a Zuma t-shirt, he sat beside the ANC leader, who has been fighting corruption allegations for eight years. The case was just dropped on a technicality and some South Africans still question his innocence.

It’s the second time Mandela has appeared at an ANC rally in the run up to the election, seen as the ANC’s toughest test since it came to power - it is still set to win by a big margin, but perhaps by not as big a margin as before.

After the first campaign appearance, some of the ANC’s foes suggested Mandela had been unfairly exploited and even that his health had been put at risk. But he certainly looked happy enough on Sunday - if as frail as might be expected for a 90 year-old.

Was Mandela’s appearance a desperate last attempt by the ANC to gather votes and divert attention from enduring troubles such as poverty, crime and AIDS?

Or was it just a sign of the faith that Mandela still has in Africa’s oldest liberation movement?

Fifteen years after the end of apartheid, is South Africa still seen a model of democracy on a continent where freedom is lacking? Or is it headed in the wrong direction?

It’s one of the biggest ironies in South African politics — the most loyal ANC voters are often those the party appears to have let down most bitterly.

For millions of poor, mostly black South Africans, life has barely changed since the African National Congress defeated apartheid under Nelson Mandela in 1994.

Year after year, they wait for the new house, the job, the running water and electricity, the decent education for their children that the ANC has promised. For many, that never comes. Yet most will still vote for ANC and its leader Jacob Zuma in an election next week.

The poorest residents of Munsieville, a township on the edge of Johannesburg, illustrate the contradiction.

Unemployed and tired of living crammed into one-room shacks with no running water or electricity, they are quick to list the ways their government has failed them.

Hundreds share one water tap, which sits next to a stinking mound of rubbish where dirt-smudged children play and stray dogs scavenge for food. They dig pits for toilets.

Many say they have languished for years at the bottom of waiting lists for decent housing. They were left behind while others enjoyed a decade of continuous economic growth that created a burgeoning black middle class.

Yet almost all recoiled in horror at any suggestion they vote against the ANC.

“Half a loaf of bread is better than no bread,” said 24-year-old single mother Rahab Modise, wringing out her family’s washing in front of her shack. “The ANC is going to help us. They are taking a long time, but I still hope they will come one day.”

It’s thanks to people like Modise that the ANC is virtually ensured of winning next week’s election despite a challenge from a new breakaway party and a string of corruption scandals.

But why do those who have gained so little display such unwavering loyalty?

Analysts say that until other parties such as the newly formed Congress of the People (COPE), formed by disgruntled ANC politicians, or the Democratic Alliance learn to identify with the poor, the ruling party will face little in the way of real opposition.

“Irrespective of how bad service delivery gets, the poor still think the ANC represents them,” said Ebrahim Fakir, a political analyst at the Electoral Institute of South Africa. “The ANC’s image fits with what they see when they look in the mirror.”

Part of the appeal lies in the ANC’s freedom-fighter credentials.

COPE’s presidential candidate Mvume Dandala put it in simple terms during a recent township walkabout in a township.

“It’s like an abused wife — you get beaten every day but you keep going back to this man. and deep in your mind there’s some thing that says, were it not for this man I would probably never have been married.”

Zuma, a polygamist who enlivens rallies by kicking his legs in the air and dancing on stage, has helped cultivate that image.

He sings struggle-era songs to remind voters of the time he spent in jail on Robben Island alongside Mandela and hails from a rural area of the nation’s poorest province.

Rising to president-in waiting despite having no formal education, Zuma’s own life embodies the rags-to-riches fairytale many dream of, and when he pledges new houses, many believe him.

“We like Zuma because he’s one of us,” said Vuyo Tsotso, 26, who makes about 10 rand ($1) a day selling scrap wiring. “Zuma will give us grants and build houses. The ANC saved our lives because of what they did in 1994,” he said.

But there are also hints of change in Munsieville that suggest the ANC’s grip on power will not last forever, with a few younger voters expressing a willingness to at least consider other parties.

One had already decided to vote for the DA, headed by a white woman, Helen Zille — an option he had previously dismissed because of South Africa’s troubled racial past.

“Since 1994 the ANC has been making empty promises,” said Philemon Rakuba, 23. “They say a better life for all, but they’re the only ones living better while we’re still stuck here, and still voting for them.”

What do you think? Why do the ANC and Zuma command such loyalty from South Africa’s poor? Will the party always be able to count on such unwavering support?

Organisers have postponed a conference of Nobel peace laureates in South Africa after the government denied a visa to Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who won the prize in 1989 - five years after South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu won his and four years before Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk won theirs for their roles in ending the racist apartheid regime.

Although local media said the visa ban followed pressure from China, an increasingly important investor and trade partner, the government said it had not been influenced by Beijing and that the Dalai Lama’s presence was just not in South Africa’s best interest at the moment.

The conference, ahead of the 2010 World Cup, had been due to discuss how to use soccer to fight xenophobia and racism.

“We stand by our decision. Nothing is going to change. The Dalai Lama will not be invited to South Africa. We will not give him a visa between now and the World Cup,” said government spokesman Thabo Masebe.

Whatever the reasoning, it angered the Nobel laureates in a country which has prided itself as a model of democracy and human rights since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, one of the conference organisers said the rejection was tainting South Africa’s democratic credentials.

“The government needs to review its decision and come to the party,” said Mandela, set to become a parliamentarian with the ruling African National Congress after the election in April.

Allowing a visit by the Dalai Lama could certainly have made relations with Beijing more difficult. Ties between France and China were badly strained after French President Nicolas Sarkozy met him in December, when France held the European Union presidency.

But banning the Dalai Lama has also created a storm that South Africa was unlikely to have wanted either.

Was the ban the right thing to do?

A court ruling that effectively reinstates corruption charges against African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma could hardly have come at a worse moment for him and the party that has dominated South Africa since the end of apartheid.

There appears little doubt that Zuma will be the party’s presidential candidate ahead of elections expected around April, but the ANC now faces its toughest electoral test yet with hefty graft charges hanging over its man.

Prosecutors say the ruling means Zuma remains charged with corruption, fraud and money laundering. This might severely hurt his image, internationally and at home, during a battle to fend off a challenge from the new party of ANC dissidents called COPE. The ANC is still expected to win, but maybe without such a sweeping parliamentary majority to be able to shape laws as it wishes.

The news brought renewed concerns of political instability and the rand fell to a one-month low.

Zuma’s lawyers may appeal to the Constitutional Court, the highest in the country, which will drag out the case further. Zuma has said before he will only step down as president if found guilty of the corruption and fraud charges.

Prosecutors and Zuma may try to secure a deal that will end the long-running saga over charges that Zuma’s supporters see as politically motivated.

A settlement may suit Zuma if it looks as though he will face new charges and a trial that will either coincide with the election, or punctuate the first years of his presidency.

The appeals court ruling is good news for former President Thabo Mbeki, helping to repair his image after being ousted by the ANC in September, following the high court judgement that suggested he interfered to secure charges against Zuma. He cannot be expected to return to government, however.

What should Zuma and the ANC do next? Even if no charges are brought by then, would the case be likely to have an impact on the elections? Would COPE stand to benefit?