How seamlessly the South African discourse has shifted from a national conversation to spitting threats. And how ineffectual government has been in the face of property destruction and threats of public violence. A fortnight ago University of Cape Town (UCT) students were seducing a placatory commentariat with their #RhodesMustFall campaign. This week these same students, […]
William Saunderson-Meyer
This Jaundiced Eye column appears in Weekend Argus, The Citizen, and Independent on Saturday. WSM is also a book reviewer for the Sunday Times and Business Day. Follow @TheJaundicedEye.
Posted inNews/Politics
Waiting for the crap attack on Zuma’s statue
When the statue of President Jacob Zuma is eventually erected at the Union Buildings, carefully sited to avoid falling into the large shadow cast by that of Nelson Mandela, there will be joy and ululation throughout the land. For despite his manifest failings and a large bill still outstanding for home renovations, he is our […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Sissy Cecil tests the mettle of university administrators
The statue of Cecil John Rhodes, 19th century Cape prime minister, southern African mining magnate, and British imperialist, is to be removed from its commanding position over the rugby fields of the University of Cape Town. In response to pressure from a small but effectively organised gang of students — who alternated the shock tactics […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Farlam to Eskom: Finding the truth or hiding it
The commission of inquiry is one of the most useful tools in the politician’s toolbox. In the Westminster system of government it developed as a mechanism for government to seek opinion, advice and information from outside the narrow confines of the civil service. It soon grew into a way to build public trust by addressing […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANC is lost in a fog of doublethink and doublespeak
Military theorists speak of the “fog of war”. It’s that swirling mist of uncertainty where not only the true intentions and capabilities of one’s adversaries are unclear, but so too the true measure of the resources one can deploy. The great Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz wrote that it took a particularly skilled intelligence to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were flying SAA?
Forget about the cryptic Nostradamus if you want to descry the shape of the future in the utterances of the past. Look rather at an unknown medieval English riddler who with uncanny foresight predicted the excesses almost 400 years later of the South African government. The riddle is about a man with four wives on […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The ANC gets an ‘F’ for fibbing. Must try harder
It’s an oldie but goldie. How can one tell when a politician is lying? Answer: When their lips are moving. It’s distressing not only that President Jacob Zuma’s administration is inept and corrupt. What is almost worse is the insultingly poor quality of the explanations proffered when things go wrong. After 21 years of assiduous […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mbete, a disaster as National Assembly speaker
So, it is all okay then? National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete has apologised for labelling her bête noire Julius Malema a ‘cockroach’. After all, to err is human, to forgive divine? No, it is not okay. If the farce that played out around President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) were to have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The chortling schoolboy fluffs his sonorous monologue
It was the best and worse of South African political discourse. It was the raw hope of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison exactly 25 years ago this week, reduced to a squabbling farce. It was the magisterial Chair of the National Chamber of Provinces versus the classroom monitor pettiness of the Speaker of the National […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Social media dump Zuma in a political pickle
It is a legal maxim never to ask in court a question to which you don’t already know the answer. There’s a political equivalent, which is never to ask voters for advice that you don’t intend taking. In advance of next week’s State of the Nation address (Sona), the Presidency invited South Africans to use […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zuma’s bad dose of ‘premature proclamation’ causes legislative impotence
It’s not often that a country’s leader goes to court to nullify laws that his own government drafted and he earlier happily signed. But hey, this is South Africa where the left hand often is at odds with its right-hand partner. Here, trade unions regularly demonstrate against the very government that they are part of. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Marie biscuit corruption shows up the rot
This week a minor official, corrupted with a packet of Marie biscuits, highlighted starkly the present rot and inequities in the nation. Corruption is endemic to all political systems. What differs is how it is dealt with. Because governments in Western democracies are easily voted out, popular outrage over corruption is assuaged by periodically acting […]