South Africa’s current conditions of misunderstanding and intolerance of difference, of leadership disconnection with the people and of business misalignment with holistic human development are screaming for something fresh. The manner in which we relate to each other as people sharing the same space (in all its manifestations!) is unsustainable and demands change. Here’s an […]
News/Politics
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
We can’t run away from race
It was with great interest that I read Vincent Maher’s justification on the demographics of Thought Leader contributors. Unlike Maher, I am not white but like him I also voted for the first time in 1994. By that time I was already 34 years old and should have had a tradition of voting, but unfortunately, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The sinister Marc Dutroux cover-up (part three)
This is the final part of our Marc Dutroux investigation. Read part one here and part two here. Paedophile Dutroux’s support system in law enforcement and legal circles came into their own as the case wound up. I think it’s important to place these facts out in the open once more for public evaluation because […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The arms deal may yet take down more than one president
One interesting development out of Monday’s ANC NEC meeting was the announcement of an ad-hoc committee that will produce a “detailed structural report” on the 1999 arms deal. This has supposedly been brought to bear given the lack of detail of the facts surrounding the arms deal and the role of the ANC president, Jacob […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is Hillary Clinton set to quit? Misogyny is stronger than racism?
Last night’s Drudge Report included a breaking newsflash that seems to indicate that Hillary Clinton, for so long the favourite to take the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, may well be on the verge of dropping out of the race for the White House. The general mood in the media seems to […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Double-barrelled surnames — just blame them on Felicia
For a nation that has so vehemently cast off the shackles of colonialism, we South Africans have done a bloody good job of opting for that ridiculous British anachronism — the double-barrelled surname. It’s even stranger that this rather pompous trait seems to be confined almost exclusively to high-powered female members of the ruling party. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A man of substance
If Barack Obama wins Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary — and after his decisive showing in the Iowa caucuses last week, his chances look very strong — it will be time to start thinking seriously about President Obama. The prospect appeals. Not to Bill Clinton, of course. He has been telling reporters Obama is unelectable and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Jacob Zuma: Four weddings and an indictment
While Kenyans were praying for peace yesterday, their leaders continued to squabble over the spoils of the elections. Probably just some form of “post”-destructuralism I must have missed. Mind you, if you think they’re slightly misguided, how about Bobby “Who’s Fuelling Whom” Mugabe who announced his brand-new elephant biltong over the weekend? Local conservationists are […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
‘The roots of fear’ and the leaftips of hope
Sharon Begley, an outstanding reporter/writer for Newsweek, wrote an exceptional piece on the roles and rules of fear and hope in American presidential politics (“The roots of fear”, December 24 2007). Against the backdrop of South Africa’s mostly superficial Bakelite* political analysis in which the same tawdry arguments about personalities and so-called “policy planning” (an […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Jacob Zuma and the fair-trial conundrum
At about 4pm on May 8 2006, while Judge Willem van der Merwe was handing down a verdict of not guilty in the Jacob Zuma rape trial, I was waiting for a client outside the Carlton Centre in the Johannesburg city centre. The atmosphere in town was electric and even though I obviously knew who […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Don’t fire Pandor, fire some teachers
Although in general I love her blogs, firing Naledi Pandor, as Charlene Smith suggests, is really not going to help the desperate state of South African schools. Firing teachers, however, might. And there is precedent for it.
Posted inBusiness, General, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
Hope returns: Obama’s victory and global politics
Damn, I love Americans. Just when you’ve written them off as hopeless, as a nation in decline, they turn around and do something extraordinary, which tells you why the United States of America is still the greatest nation on earth. But too, what is happening in America and Kenya holds lessons for politicians everywhere, and […]