I have resisted writing on the Marikana disaster for a few weeks now because of how the tragic events quickly degenerated into a political football in a disgusting blame game match. The tragedy has simply descended into an awfully obscene orgy of politicians, media, analysts and many other armchair critics. But now I can’t ignore […]
Zuma
Posted inNews/Politics
President Zuma misses the plot over public anger
There is nothing quite as satisfying as watching a prosperously plump politician slow roasting in difficulties of his own making. Smothered under lashings of public opprobrium following the Marikana massacre, President Jacob Zuma was this week fairly sizzling. It’s all so unfair, was the theme. The African National Congress had done more to improve the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
0800MALEMA
By Lukhona Mnguni 0800MALEMA is the number. Don’t get left behind, make that call. It’s free of charge. Do you want an economic freedom fighter at your doorstep? Just dial and you’ll receive one in a flash. There’s no diary, first come first serve, but you will be attended to. Qualifying criteria: 1 You’re a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Of Marxist wastelands and aborted transitions
On the occasion of the African National Congress’s 100th anniversary early this year, there was a literary text that kept playing inside my subconscious mind every time I watched or read about this momentous event – one of the most significant of our time. It is a passage from Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah: […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Reshuffling: Zuma missed the jokers
They say in every war there are casualties, and it would seem President Jacob Zuma has gone to war far too many times, leaving a trail of body bags in his wake. This week the man from Nkandla caught many, including those in the ruling party, by surprise when he announced a cabinet reshuffle at […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The ANC’s bullying will fail to quash freedom
There has been much gnashing of teeth at the decision made by the editor of City Press, Ferial Haffajee, to remove a photo of Bretty Murray’s The Spear from the newspaper’s website. When it comes to the media, the ANC has brought all its indignant rage down on one publication – it has been useful […]
Posted inGeneral
Dignity in la-la land: Why anybody can’t paint anybody’s penis
By Leonhard Praeg We all know that political liberals live in a la-la land that hovers, somewhat like a virtual reality, over the real geography of political time and space. For citizens of la-la land “freedom of expression” is the same in South Africa as it is in Zimbabwe as it is in New Zealand, […]
Posted inGeneral
When the defaced Spear is better than the original
So ja, I’ve given in. I’ve decided to talk about that painting. The one that’s transfixed the nation for more than a week now – even on Twitter, a platform known for nothing so much as institutionalised ADD. It is the PR gift that keeps on giving: apparently it’s reached 108 million people and delivered […]
Posted inNews/Politics
#Zumaspear and the politics of the cock
When I first saw the painting of the The Spear I instinctively felt that it was wrong for one reason: if it had been a painting of a female politician with her genitalia (however small) displayed at a public art gallery, I would not have supported it. I would have felt that it was an insult to […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma’s privates and the black male sexual potency myth
Tom Sharpe’s comic novel Indecent Exposure mercilessly lampooning white racism in South Africa was predictably banned under the apartheid government. I managed to get my copy during a visit to Sun City, where such contraband was legally obtainable (since it fell within the boundaries of the ‘independent’ homeland of Bophuthatswana). In one scene, a distraught […]
Posted inGeneral
Hanging out with Zuma
Is it racism or is it art? What is this thing? What the hell has happened to us as a country during this last week? Whatever it is, I’m afraid there’s no going back. Never again would an innocent phrase such as “honorary member” be spoken in Parliament or anywhere else without someone in the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma only has his cockups to blame
The orgiastic furore surrounding the depiction of President Jacob Zuma’s genitalia in an infamous painting, The Spear, is yet to reach a climax in the public square. The painting has power for one reason, and one reason alone: it crystallised a public narrative in pictorial form. As I have written here before, sex is controversially […]