Posted inNews/Politics

Afrikaans shows some unexpected mettle

For the past two decades Afrikaners have been struggling to find a new identity. Specifically, one beyond the cliché of Boertjie as a thickset, thick-skulled, knuckle-dragging, racist Neanderthal whose simple pleasures in life are slugging Klippies-and-Coke and dancing lang arm around the braai. That is, when the Baas is not otherwise engaged dragging errant farm […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Pistorius case highlights the failings of social media

Oscar Pistorius is an inspirational icon whose fierce love for his woman inadvertently had nightmarish consequences. That’s what the cloyingly vociferous fans on his website would have us believe. Oscar Pistorius is an ego-on-stilts with temper issues which, due to his arrogance, inevitably resulted in violence. That’s what his detractors punt on social media sites […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Just trust me, I’m a lawyer…

Despite a stonewalling legal establishment, the issue of attorney misconduct is hard to fudge. The reality is that South Africa’s law societies place member interests above transparency, appear to discipline members inconsistently, and are indifferent to international benchmarks. A few weeks back this column touched on the latitude granted to the professions to regulate themselves […]

Posted inNews/Politics

School kids pay the cost of political schizophrenia

The African National Congress is inclined towards self-defeating behaviour. Nowhere has this political schizophrenia been as glaring as in the government’s inability to deliver a sound basic education. The right to education is a cornerstone of the Freedom Charter, the founding document of the modern ANC. Appropriately so, since there is a surfeit of research […]

Posted inNews/Politics

A survival kit for the ANC

It’s crucial that a parasite controls its intake. After all, if the host is sucked dry and consequently expires, so too does the parasite. It is this self-preserving biological imperative that lies behind the African National Congress’s intention to “name and shame” corrupt civil servants. This, it claims, will reduce the amount of R30-billion that […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Public interest in Ramphele’s movement stems from despair

Dr Mamphela Ramphele this week launched Agang, not quite the long-awaited political party that has been the focus of so much speculation, but rather a “consultative platform” that is yet to morph into one. The assessment of political commentators so far has been mostly delivered with barely stifled derision. There’s widespread agreement that Agang – […]