The astonishing aspect to the diplomatic debacle involving Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is not that this genocidal maniac was allowed to leave South Africa. It was that he was allowed to come here in the first place. Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the […]
Dalai Lama
Posted inNews/Politics
Christopher Hitchens not great, says this “atheist”
It depressed me a bit to write the title for this column, playing on one of the late Hitchen’s book titles, God is not Great. I think nothing can ever be achieved by slamming other people’s religious beliefs. Those people are going to continue holding on to their beliefs. Perhaps even more dearly. The attack […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Was Loyiso Gola the Zuma assassin?
Over the weekend South African President Jacob Zuma confirmed that, while he was still the deputy president, there had been a plot to have him assassinated, which was only thwarted because his loyal bodyguards refused to become involved. Along the lines of Valkyrie without the knobkerrie. Yet by mid-morning Monday only News24 and iAfrica have […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The Dalai Lama saga: Episode 2
Concerning the small matter of the second failed attempt by the Dalai Lama to get a visa into South Africa in as many years, let us begin by giving the South African government the benefit of the doubt. Notice how I have carefully constructed the preceding sentence along the lines suggested and hinted at by […]
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 inGeneral
Mandela and the Dalai Lama
So damaging was the fall-out over South Africa’s denying the Dalai Lama a visa when he wished to attend a peace conference a couple of years ago that it was hard to imagine such a blunder being repeated. At the time, it was perhaps the most egregious example of the last administration’s penchant for shloeping […]
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 […]