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 […]
Tutu
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]