What is not said is often more important than what is. The response of Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to this week’s cabinet reshuffle is a case in point. Mazibuko welcomed the exit of Communications Minister Dina Pule but found inexplicable the retention of Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Egypt needs a Mandela
The tumultuous tides of human protesters on the streets, bridges and squares of Cairo and Istanbul, speak of frustration with the world as it is and a yearning for a better life. A clear and precise vision of that better life as articulated in the Freedom Charter by our visionary Nelson Mandela is what contributed […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Malema’s problems will be over soonish
Let me tell ye how it shall be! The sun will be a blazing mass in the sky, rivers and oceans will run dry, massive swarms of locusts will roam the planet as human beings wither and die, blood will boil and turn to scabs as animals suffocate and drown in their own vomit … […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Love in the time of corruption
It was an epic duel. At stake was a fantastically rich slab of game pate, but the fresh prune slices and some subtly dressed peppery leaves that accompanied it was in more immediate danger of having to be surrendered. Much worse: so was a glass of finely moussed Moravian brut. Yes, Moravian, for I was […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Finding truth in a culture of secrecy
By Vinayak Bhardwaj The release of the “Nkandla files” reported in last week’s Mail & Guardian was the product of a long battle against a fast-calcifying culture of secrecy in our public bodies. Through bureaucratic delays, misinterpretations of the law and the overuse of “national security” as a basis for non-disclosure, public and private bodies […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Mandla Mandela and the demise of traditional black culture
By Melo Magolego A little while back in my home township of Ga-Rankuwa, just north of Pretoria, a very peculiar thing happened. A woman who had been living with her parents had, on the passing of her parents, become sole resident of the family house. Due to the vagaries of the economy, the other siblings […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Health, News/Politics
Deadly circumcision and initiation practices should be outlawed
Nelson Mandela in his autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom recounts his childhood experience during this rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. He writes: “When I was sixteen, the regent decided that it was time that I became a man. In Xhosa tradition, this is achieved through one means only: circumcision. In my tradition, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Dear Mayor Patricia de Lille and Alderman JP Smith, Cape Town
In response to this and this please find the new: ATTENTION ALL ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES CC: IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS, CAPE TOWN BUREAUCRATS AND POLICE NEW REGULATIONS / BYLAWS FOR MAKING MUSIC + ARTS IN PUBLIC SPACE IN CAPE TOWN You will disregard the loud, screechy sound of the retailers and local businesses who think that the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Open letter to all two-faced apartheid beneficiaries
Since it’s the open letter season, I thought I would pen a humble one to all unrepentant apartheid collaborators and benefactors who claim to love Madiba. The love so widely professed for #Madiba by the former apartheid collaborators and benefactors should be shown in deeds. So many profess this undying love and admiration for #Madiba […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Egypt, it is a military coup
The conventional wisdom, regarding the Middle East, has always been that a group of democracies living side by side would usher in a new era of peace and co-operation in the region. In tandem with this we must have regard to the stated quest of, primarily, western countries in locating the moderate majority of Muslims […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Egypt: How not to do a political transition
You’ve been elected in your country’s first democratic election. Well done. That’s the easy bit done. Now you need to actually start governing. That, as Morsi found out in Egypt, is the difficult bit. Reasons abound for the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt. I want to focus on two issues: inclusive leadership and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Of thieves, crooks, thugs and so on
Business people the world over work to build political connections in order to gain competitive advantage. There is no law that prohibits the creation and existence of such mutual relationships between business and politics. Both are intrinsically linked and cannot exist without the other, especially in a pretentious free-market system. The lowering of ethical standards […]