Steven Friedman

More than 50 years ago, in Kliptown, thousands of people adopted a Freedom Charter which proclaimed that “the people shall govern”. How might they have felt if they could imagine a day when the leadership of the African National Congress would insist instead that the people are not ready to govern? An interesting aspect of […]

Sometimes, progress can look like a mess — particularly for those who prefer not to see it. An excellent example is the current state of African politics. As it often does, the continent is offering Afro-pessimists — a long, fancy word for people who don’t believe black people in Africa can run anything — no […]

What do the election of Jacob Zuma and Eskom’s power cuts have in common? Both bring out the racial demons buried just beneath the surface of the minds of many white South Africans. It was only a matter of time before the power cuts brought the racial creepy-crawlies out of the woodwork. And so, on […]

Is it only us, or do all changing societies not know when to cheer and when to worry? The latest example showing that South Africans often wring their hands at things we should cheer — and ignore problems we should wring our hands about — is the charges against Jackie Selebi and, before him, Jacob […]

One of the few certainties about our politics is that things usually do not turn out nearly as bad, or as good, as we expect. The signs suggest that the political drama that the re-charging of Jacob Zuma will spark in 2008 will broadly follow this pattern. So prepare for neither doomsday nor Utopia as […]

OK, so we know now that we are not Zimbabwe. It will take a whole lot longer before we know clearly what we are — or, rather, what we are becoming. The key implication of the Zuma victory is, surely, the point made by some grassroots delegates and a few commentators this week: that it […]

We say we want democracy — but we don’t seem to like it much when we see it. How else to interpret the breast-beating from commentators and some delegates here at Polokwane after the opening day of the ANC conference? Most of us no doubt know by now that day one of Polokwane was a […]

If you want to know why ANC policy won’t change dramatically whoever wins in Polokwane, take a look at the front page of one of our daily business newspapers on Tuesday morning, which features a photo of Jacob Zuma, Tokyo Sexwale and Zwelinzima Vavi at a meeting at Wits University. All three are laughing and […]

It is more than a little ironic that ANC leaders who once fought so hard to ensure that all of us can vote freely have spent the past few weeks trying to convince us that those South Africans who actually belong to the movement should have far less of a vote than the rest of […]

If you want to know why you should not take seriously reports promising that the US “peace initiative” in Annapolis will end conflict in the Middle East, it may be useful to recall something of our own journalistic past. During the height of apartheid, some of our newspapers had a stock headline they would trot […]

If you really want to confuse people about where the country is headed, say it with numbers. There is a certain magic about numbers and the spells they weave in many heads. Go to most conferences, for example. Even the most brilliant presentation in words may provoke only glassy stares — a PowerPoint slide with […]

So why should we care who wins the ANC presidency? We shouldn’t, Ndumiso Ngcobo suggests in his latest post. And he is right to insist that the difference between the candidates is not nearly as great as their supporters and the analysts (sorry, “star gazers” and “palm readers”) make out. But, despite this, the succession […]