Posted inNews/Politics

DA march on ANC HQ: A plague on both your houses

South African politicians are notoriously bad at accountability. It’s always someone else’s fault: usually that of their opponent. In most western democracies, however, politicians do still resign for reasons of accountability. This week the British Immigration minister, Mark Harper, bit the bullet because his Colombian cleaner turned out to be an illegal immigrant. Harper could […]

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

Election ecstasy: Old foes kiss and make up

Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Julius Malema. Helen Zille and Jacob Zuma. When traditional foes start making nice towards one another or echoing one another’s opinions, it’s clearly the end of the world as we know it. Or else, it’s a general election year and they’re scrambling to ingratiate themselves with voters. Inkatha Freedom Party leader Buthelezi […]

Posted inNews/Politics

The Democratic Alliance does the Time Warp again

The normally smug and steady Democratic Alliance has over the past month metamorphosised into South Africa’s political equivalent of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This dizzying plunge through a Verwoerdian time warp was triggered by the Employment Equity Amendment Bill (EEAB), which prescribes swingeing penalties for private sector companies that don’t meet the government’s rigid […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Helen loves Angie: How politics makes for strange bedfellows

What is not said is often more important than what is. The response of Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko to this week’s cabinet reshuffle is a case in point. Mazibuko welcomed the exit of Communications Minister Dina Pule but found inexplicable the retention of Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister […]

Posted inEquality

Shit and social justice

Poststructuralist psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has argued that humans distinguish themselves from animals in the instant during which shit becomes something shameful. Thus it is the norm in ‘polite society’ that humans defecate in the privacy of a toilet in which their waste can be instantly flushed away. In fact toilet training is the foundation for […]