News/Politics

By Suntosh Pillay Truth is always stranger than fiction. Malema, after all, went to Zimbabwe to learn economics from Robert Mugabe. In fact, the ANC Youth League’s “study-tour programme”, where eight of Malema’s cronies will travel to China, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil and Cuba, to “learn” how these countries have fared in nationalisation projects, is absurd. […]

It is dispiriting that the ANC’s sudden restraint has more to do with managing international perceptions ahead of the Soccer World Cup than it has do with what happens in SA in the long term. It is also dispiriting that the death of a particularly vile racist has given a shot in the arm to a white supremacist movement that previously was on life support.

By Dr Jacob Wanyama and Danielle Nierenberg Maralal, Kenya, is mostly known for its wildlife. And as we made the seven hour, bumpy trek from Nairobi — half of it on unpaved roads — we saw our fair share of water buffaloes, rhinos, impala, and giraffes. But we weren’t here to go on safari. We […]

Reports, including our own, which claim that the AWB wants a declaration of war are not giving careful consideration to the circumstances in which the country currently finds itself. It simply is not on. For proof that it is misguided, regard need only be had to the retraction by the AWB of the statement of […]

There seems to be a problem with the delivery of the South African nation. The rainbow nation is currently monochrome and issues remain cast in black and white, ignoring other factors like class, gender and sexuality. In fact the rainbow is highly separated, with very little grey area in between. The most prominent marker for […]

So Andre Visagie, secretary-general of the AWB, really lost his cool recently on e.tv to the delight of the international media, especially the BBC. Addressing Visagie in the talk show, campaigner for human rights Lebohang Pheko was passionately asking a string of perfectly legitimate questions about the poverty and oppression of (largely black) farm workers. […]

Eugene Terre’Blanche was a figure of ridicule and disdain for many people. He evoked strong responses of anger and shame for his political beliefs and in death further polarises South African society. I am horrified by the responses that bluntly state good riddance and that he deserved this type of death. I feel for his […]

The most depressing part of the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre wasn’t the political mud-slinging between the two leading former liberation movements. Both reveal the predictable inability of most black politicians and activists to engage in constructive engagement and decent discourse. Rather, what was most disturbing was seeing Pan Africanist Congress members tearing into […]