Buti Manamela, ANC MP and leader of the Young Communist League, caused a stir in Parliament this week when he stated bluntly that he acts on orders from Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters. He was speaking at the meeting where the ANC used its parliamentary majority to shut down the ad hoc committee tasked with […]
Christi van der Westhuizen
Dr Christi van der Westhuizen is an award-winning political columnist and the author of the book Working Democracy: Perspectives on South Africa's Parliament at 20 Years, available for download at www.pmg.org.za.
Twitter @ChristivdWest;
Email christiwza[at]yahoo.com.
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Parliament @20: Shrinking the accountability deficit
This year South Africans celebrate the 20-year anniversary of our democratic parliament. With national and provincial elections approaching, political parties are finalising the lists of candidates selected to represent South Africans. It is an opportune moment to reflect on the efficacy of public representation and how civil society can assist in enhancing it. Much has […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Now for the 21st century round of South African sex panic
Twenty years into democracy and the battles to capture and define South African identities are at fever pitch. Race seems to have a new lease on life and, unexpectedly, so does sexuality. Some say that South Africa’s future is black, in the sense that state power will never be in the hands of a white-defined […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The white angst of Red October
Singer and aspirant politician Steve Hofmeyr delivered a heart-wrenching ode to the splendours and disappointments of Afrikaner white masculinity at the Red October march in Pretoria. But to get an even better sense of the thinking behind the campaign, just look at the two sponsors of its website: Comfizone and the Pistols Saloon. It’s so […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Neoliberalism: ‘Stop thinking because this is it’
“What is neoliberalism?” The young American student looks at me with faux innocence of the wide-eyed sort. She’s not sure what it is. “Can you explain?” Sniggers precede and succeed the question. With that little question-and-snigger, neoliberal hegemony re-iterates its reach across the Atlantic Ocean to South Africa, by way of that island that formerly […]
Posted inNews/Politics
You have no right to own land if you’re black and rural
Powerful lobby groups regularly sound alarm bells when the torpid rate of land reform fleetingly raises the possibility of land expropriation and, with it, the spectre of the violation of white farmers’ property rights. In reality, it is black, rural, poor South Africans who are already being deprived of the right to own property, even […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The Oscar Pistorius case: Time magazine is wrong, Lulu is right
Two mainstream media companies have turned the Oscar Pistorius case into an opportunity to ruminate on the perils of post-white rule. Time magazine and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) have both in their recent coverage used Pistorius’s defence to weigh in on the South African “culture of violence”. It is notable that these media companies […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Forget Mangaung. Budget politics is where it’s at
Xolela Mangcu in his latest book Biko – A Biography writes about a “big-chief syndrome” that exists among the current ruling elite, in which followers are placed at the mercy of the “chief”. South Africans arguably suffer as much as politicians from big-chief syndrome, in that we imbue leaders with inordinate power. This has to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Marikana, the sign of a schizophrenic state
As assault charges are laid against the police in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre, the outrageous reality is that torture is still not criminalised in South Africa. A draft law called the Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Bill is before parliament but far from adoption. The relevant parliamentary committee has postponed the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Don’t kiss me, I’m 16
The recent fiasco with the Sexual Offences Act should serve as an alert about continuing problems dating from before the act’s adoption in 2007 and that have still not received parliament’s attention. The Western Cape High Court in May upheld a finding that meant the courts could not pass sentences for 29 crimes for which […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A parliament that doesn’t respect itself
Dr Mathole Motshekga, ANC chief whip, at the end of June wrote in ANC Today that, “parliament survives on the confidence and respect the public have in it, without (which) its dignity and integrity is eroded”. The context was Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota sticking to his guns that President Jacob Zuma had violated his oath […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Gender Commission finally has commissioners but battles are not over yet
It is a no-brainer that a commission without commissioners ceases to operate. But, by the second half of May, the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) had only two commissioners left, with terms expiring before June 7. So it was déjà vu at the CGE: in 2006-2007, the CGE had no commissioners, for which the blame […]