It’s true, the Armchaired One is throwing his not-so-insignificant weight around. Why, just the other day he left his usual spot in front of the telly and went to watch the real thing. In the heart of Chatsworth. Yebo. This was all in the name of curiosity, you see. Somehow, the Armchaired One even snaffled […]
2009
Posted inNews/Politics
Let’s have more Africa news, not less!
Jacob Zuma casts doubt on the Constitution and the Mail & Guardian cuts the Africa section: what a week! Insulting the dignity of the Constitutional Court is the sort of thing I expect to hear coming out of Julius Malema’s mouth; I didn’t expect the head of the ANC to say such a thing. It’s […]
Posted inGeneral
Love — the most valuable (and often elusive) thing in the world
“Money can’t buy me love”, the Beatles sang in their heyday. And, as Joan Copjec has remarked about the founding psychoanalytical concept, “foreclosure” (the fact that some “originary, irredeemable loss” structures our “reality”), something that capitalism’s “logic of gain” cannot tolerate, one could say that love, too, escapes capitalism’s attempts to invest in it, with […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Debunking the Daily Mail’s doomsayer
On Sunday 29 March, a devastating article by Peter Hitchens on Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s future was published in Britain’s Daily Mail. Couched in a sickening, sensationalist discourse swirling with racist and colonialist undertones, the story employed gross misrepresentation, selective truth-telling, distortion and stereotyping to depict South Africa as about to collapse into the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma is innocent until proven guilty. Time to start the election.
Whether or not a cloud hangs over ANC president Jacob Zuma, he is innocent until he is proven guilty in a court of law. This obviously relates to the legal position and not the court of public opinion. The fact of the matter is that regardless of the brouhaha that has arisen from the methods […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mr Mpshe: Here are five better reasons to let Jacob Zuma off the hook
For those of us who simply don’t buy acting NPA director Mokotedi Mpshe’s story about why he dropped the fraud, corruption, money-laundering and racketeering charges against Jacob Zuma, I thought it might be worth considering five more plausible explanations Mpshe might have provided for his decision. 1. Personal betrayal and revenge. An astounding piece of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The great contender
I admit that I am a pseudo-terrorist, that I have in the past engaged in pseudo-terrorist and pseudo-guerilla activities in the pursuit of certain political goals. Indeed the hypocrisy and contradiction of doing so would give me cause to lose sleep at night, were it not for my monastic lifestyle and my community service which […]
Posted inNews/Politics
An open letter to the IEC
Dear Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa Re: If you don’t vote — you can’t complain I write in complaint of a campaign conducted by or under the authority of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (hereinafter referred to as the IEC). This campaign bears the message, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, […]
Posted inGeneral
Open, Sezuma!!
The following things seem pretty certain now — the ANC will emerge victorious from the elections and Jacob Zuma will become South Africa’s fourth post-apartheid president. The rest is detail. Whether Cope does anything, but dilate the eye of Sauron. Whether Helen lands the Western Cape. Whether hordes of municipalities choose delivery over the ANC’s […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Guess who’s coming to class
By Thabo Mohlala I recently attended a mass meeting convened by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) Gauteng central region at Orlando Communal Hall in Soweto. I was intrigued by its recent shenanigans when they unashamedly opted to hold a meeting during school time to promote ANC policies at the expense of education. I […]
Posted inGeneral
A quiet revolution brews
A quiet revolution is building in South Africa ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Stroke by stroke, note by note, thousands of singers, painters and other artists are plying their trade with a strong focus on the event. The KZN Gallery in Glenwood is currently hosting All Eyes in African, a magnificent exhibition of mosaics […]
Posted inGeneral
British anti-terror chief quits in disgrace while NIA plans to visit Grace
In order to give you some indication of how seriously most countries take matters of national security look no further than the British head of anti-terror, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick who quit in disgrace after arriving for a Downing Street meeting yesterday with top-secret files on a bomb plot under his arm. As he wandered […]