An alert to fatties, puffers, boozers and assorted body abusers. It’s time to clean up your act or piss off and die on your own dime. Why patch up slow-motion suicides when hard-pressed and limited medical resources could be better allocated elsewhere? All things being equal, someone who survives a bullet to the brain playing […]
News/Politics
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The gospel according to Frank
Describing himself as one “whom history destined to be caught in the storm”, Frank Chikane sees the writing and publishing of his latest book Eight days in September: The Removal of Thabo Mbeki as a “responsibility which no one but me can discharge”. Who better to tell this story than one who has not only […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Licensed to kill: US soldiers in Afghanistan
My colleague Sokhu Sibiya recently said to me that American children are always taught from a young age in their living rooms that they are superior to any other nation in the world. She was responding to the discussion we were having about the recent killing of 16 civilians in Kandahar, Afghanistan. “They watch movies, […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The ANC’s “second transition”: promise, threat or propaganda?
1 The chain-reaction set off by the release of the ANC policy discussion documents last week, the foundation course for the party’s “second transition”, was to be expected. Headlines and tweets speak of “mining grabs”, “resource nationalism”, a “full scale attack” on the constitution, and the “path to a failed state”. Some say it is […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mbeki’s meekness was a critical weakness
Ousted former president Thabo Mbeki exited with quiet dignity. Privately, however, he warned of potential disaster under Jacob Zuma, who at the party’s Polokwane conference had engineered a miraculous political rehabilitation, to turn the tables on the man who had fired him. Mbeki, according to Mark Gevisser’s biography, predicted that Zuma would reduce South Africa […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mbeki’s big blunder: apartheid reparations
By Isaac Mangena When tabling the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report in Parliament on April 2003, former president Thabo Mbeki lashed out at victims of apartheid brutality who were seeking reparations against multinational companies, most of which are based in the United States. “We consider it completely unacceptable that matters that are central to the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Traditional Courts Bill: Colonialism warmed up
The retabled Traditional Courts Bill, if adopted in its current form, will relegate at least 17 million South Africans to a separate and unequal judicial regime merely because they happen to live in the rural areas – a situation in many cases imposed on them by the apartheid regime. While cabinet’s planned “review” of Constitutional […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Malema is out but his message is the in thing
I was at Mbare township’s netball complex on Saturday April 3 2010 for ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s rally. Mbare is Zimbabwe’s oldest high-density suburb and is also one of the areas that suffered tremendously from the Robert Mugabe regime’s shameful Operation Murambatsvina or Operation Get Rid of Filth, which left thousands of Zimbabweans […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A constructive comparison of Israel and apartheid South Africa
How legitimate are comparisons of Israel’s control over the Palestinians and apartheid South Africa’s treatment of blacks? As Israeli Apartheid Week sweeps through university campuses across the world, renewed attention is drawn to the parallels in the policies of both countries. This year, the frenzy generated by Israeli Apartheid Week is that much more intense […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The unions: For whom do they speak?
When it comes to the Tripartite Alliance, Oscar Wilde’s observation that the proper basis for a marriage is a mutual misunderstanding seems rather apt. ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has himself used the matrimonial metaphor. When Zuma invites the unions to join the national executive council (as he did this past week), he is extending […]
Posted inNews/Politics
When journalists silence rape survivors
This week Rhodes University student newspaper Activate published a story titled “Club Etiquette”. The story explains best party practice along the lines of ‘don’t wear heels’ and ‘respect your bartender’. Then there was this: “Don’t take advantage of the drunken person of your dreams. The next morning, when they wake up next to you wondering […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Malema: Finish and klaar or klaar but not finished?
What now for Malema? Is the latest ANC national disciplinary committee (NDC) verdict plus the revised and harsher sanction the final nail in Malema’s coffin? Is he finish and klaar or is he klaar but not quite finished? For 12 more days at least, he is still president of the ANCYL. For 12 more days […]