This is how social media images of a country inform one’s perceptions, and then stick like glue in this instant-info “Gutenberg Galaxy” of ours. You scroll through Google News, Facebook and Twitter, and powerful impressions of countries impinge on your subconscious without you being able to question them. Then you “form” an unmediated and indelible […]
Floyd Shivambu
Posted inNews/Politics
Zille’s itchy Twitter finger dumps her in the poo
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has caused quite a kerfuffle after her fight with a journalist on social media. Go, Zille! Zille’s supporters argue that since journalists dish it out with glee, we have to accept that in a robust democracy the price to be paid by the media is not to whine about getting […]
Posted inNews/Politics
EFF off…and political moral vacuums
I don’t know if I am in a minority, but when I first heard a new political party was in the process of being formed in South Africa, and it was called EFF, I thought this was a joke. “Oh eff off,” I spluttered. More questionable names for a party are difficult to come by. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why are young people buying into Malema’s party?
I had the privilege of being one of the founding members of the Economic Freedom Fighters when it was established a month and a half ago. One of my responsibilities in the organisation was to do data capturing of volunteers who wanted to join the economic freedom vehicle. In less than a week of the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
FNB’s Steve the answer to the ANCYL’s PR woes
The election of Pope Francis by a conclave of cardinals in the Vatican, the African National Congress Youth League’s NEC being dissolved by the ANC and the Oscar Pistorius shooting incident have been dwarfed into insignificance again this week as “recordings” of “Steve” from beeb Bank to FNB customers are played and replayed on 94.7 […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Playing the victim: Malema’s survival strategy
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and company have the ruling party exactly where they want it to be – i.e. they have got the ANC to mete out the harshest punishment possible. To their credit, I’m sure the ANC itself knows exactly where Malema wants it to be. It has become clear that Malema […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Oh, Juju, baby! It’s gonna be cold outside
After years of taunting with impunity its elders in the African National Congress, the Youth League has discovered that president-baiting can be a dangerous sport. Their protracted tussle with the ANC establishment, embodied in its disciplinary committee, this week ended with them dazed, bloodied and effectively booted from the pack. Firebrand ANC Youth League president […]