The simple answer is, no. I’ve attempted to answer this question once before, in 2009. My argument at the time was that South Africa had a strong Constitution, which ensured the country stayed on democratic course. Unlike Zimbabwe, post-apartheid South Africa has endeavoured to consolidate democracy by empowering independent institutions such as the judiciary. Soon […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Winds of change for the ANC
The winds of change have finally started blowing for the ANC government, just as they started blowing for the National Party government in 1960. In 1960, this event was formally announced by former British prime minister Harold Macmillan in his famous address in Cape Town on February 3 that year. In this Year of our […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Let the Lama Skype in!
When Arch Desmond Tutu’s BFF received a big fat “NOT YES” from the South African government, the Arch took the (in)decision rather personally. Fortunately for our Tutu, we South Africans, having a flair for dramatic tendencies, dichotomised and moralised the issue into good vs evil, with the country’s integrity and pearly gate invite hanging in […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Sport
What on earth could be more important than football?
I am in a hotel room with no en-suite shower or toilet. Did I say room? There isn’t enough space for my brightly coloured Shangaan bag between the single bed, three walls and door. So overnight I share my bed with my Shangaan bag. Try substituting a large bag for your teddy bear (or its […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What makes you a bad black?
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a bright-eyed bushy-tailed little black Sipho was born with a defect, which doctors would later recognise to be a dictionary, in his mouth. Little Sipho was a curious little boy, reading anything he could get his tiny Zulu hands on (of course, relative to other kids his […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Can a feminist talk about bitches and bunnyboilers?
I’m terrible. I make blonde jokes. I pass bitchy remarks about other women behind their backs. I make fun of myself and my female failings. I refer to “chickies” and “bokkies” and bunnyboilers are one of my favourite topics of discussion. Technically, I can be a terrible misogynist, though my baleful attitude applies equally to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA’s (infuriating) corruption deficit
My friend Boris was distraught. He was clutching R2000’s worth of crumpled banknotes and muttering to himself. The money, it turns out, was a rejected bribe. He had never heard of anything like it: a driving test inspector — a police official! — refusing to sell a licence for cash! “R2000 is a month’s wages!” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Special Assignment drops journalistic integrity, embraces Pagad
On Wednesday September 28 the SABC’s Special Assignment programme aired a documentary on the re-emergence of the organisation People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad). South Africans will remember Pagad as a Cape Town-based vigilante movement established in the mid-1990s that, after a seemingly peaceful start to its activities, turned to violence against drug dealers, gang […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SlutWalk: When feminists turn territorial
In 2008, Talk Radio 702 host Redi Direko (as she was then known) made news headlines for leading a Miniskirt March from the Joburg Art Gallery to the Noord Street taxi rank in town. Accompanied by about 300 men and women, most of them dressed exuberantly in miniskirts and high heels, Redi was protesting against […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The accidental politician who would be leader of the opposition
When challenged on the absence of black faces in its leadership, the Democratic Alliance loves to boast, that it is “growing its own timber”. In other words, it claims there is no window dressing, only the slow nurturing of future giants. As it turns out, the DA’s blackwood forest is more hothouse than maturing plantation. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dalai Lama’s visa delay shows up SA leaders’ moral bankruptcy
It was wonderful to see those two old pals and rogues, Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama in a photo on the front page of the Mail & Guardian online, September 27. Excited, I thought they had met up in South Africa. Alas, it was an old picture and the story made it clear that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Africa is not a country
I didn’t really take much notice of the last Zambian election, one which pitted Michael Sata and Rupiah Banda, two men in their 70s. My lack of interest could have been because I wondered why these men, who actually belong to the nationalist period that swept Africa in the 1960s, should be the ones battling […]