Who in 1994 would have thought that in 2014 the ruling party would call upon an opposition party to abort its planned march on the ruling party’s headquarters, raising the spectre of violence if the march proceeded? But then, who would have thought that we would have an average of more than 30 protests a […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Cheese, crackers and taking women in politics seriously
In light of the rumours of trouble in the Agang camp and the elections racing towards us, one would understand Mamphela Ramphele’s need to find a bedfellow in the depths of political winter. It is a time-honoured political move. The ANC has its sheets full while the smaller parties bundle together. But sometimes one does […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Let’s talk about the protests. Where is the empathy and outrage?
“The country is burning”. “Burning frustration”. “Hot-headed in South Africa”. These are the headlines that abound about the many protests that are currently erupting around South Africa. On television we witness mobs of black people apparently running amok, building barricades and burning tyres. We hear of the disenfranchised masses dancing, picking up rocks and supposedly […]
Posted inNews/Politics
DA old boys determined to learn wrong lesson from Agang debacle
It was perhaps inevitable of a relationship that was sealed in public with a lip-puckering smooch, only to collapse within days in recriminations. Political commentators have trotted out every sweaty-palmed sexual and relationship cliché found in the English language, then flogged them mercilessly. Among the bromides there’s been “marry at haste, repent at leisure” (not […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ranciére and ‘the police’
The more acquainted I get with the work of Jacques Ranciére, the more it strikes me that his uncompromisingly philosophical treatment of familiar phenomena is a way of doing what has been recognisable as philosophy’s archetypal function since the time of the ancient Greeks, namely to expose the familiar as covering up what is “truly” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ramphele debacle reflects DA’s double standards
For the Democratic Alliance, this was to be the “game-changer”. With a credible black face as its presidential candidate, the ANC would no longer be able to use the race card to dismiss the DA, went the reasoning. Yet, no sooner had the DA announced Mamphela Ramphele as its Number One candidate, the ANC was […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The troubled DA-Agang nuptial: Whoever has ears, let them hear
On June 10 1997, the then deputy president, Thabo Mbeki, told the National Assembly that: “Assertions have been made about declining financial management standards in government, which is attributed to inefficient blacks, who, it is said, occupy their positions by virtue of misplaced affirmative action policies. In reality, we are not far from the day […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, News/Politics
Flipping the corruption myth
Transparency International recently published their latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), laid out in an eye-catching map of the world with the least corrupt nations coded in happy yellow and the most corrupt nations smeared in stigmatising red. The CPI defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit,” and draws its data […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Magical thinking is behind the gloom over SA’s Constitution
Despite the evidence to the contrary – 20 years of successfully protected freedoms – it has becoming increasingly fashionable to badmouth the South African Constitution. Sceptics range across the political spectrum, from radicals, who want the state to be unconstrained, to liberals who claim that the Constitution has effectively already been negated by the state. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zille and Ramphele – long live assimilation, long live!
Black power is long dead. If Mamphela Ramphele and black consciousness meant anything, that dream has been dissolved into the DA. The most recent example of this assimilation: Ramphele joining the DA. While watching the images of hugs and what was described by Ramphele as “the moment of greatness”, I was torn. Is this really […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The DA-Agang arranged marriage
By Judy Sikuza As folklore will tell you, arranged marriages have always been a contentious matter — whether you are for the idea or against it. But politically, this old concept of an arranged marriage may have some fascinating consequences for the political landscape of South Africa 20 years into democracy. What is one supposed […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
DA election candidates: Not business as usual
Modern politics is often an exercise in disenchantment. Never mind the politics of austerity; politics in general can be rather austere. In 2014, politics amounts to the realisation that Barack Obama’s “yes, we can” is impossible in the face of American partisan bickering. It is the understanding that there will always be Nkandlas and arms […]