A significant component of the national outcry following the horrific gang rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen highlighted the extent to which South Africans shift blame and culpability on the raped, and not the rapist. This manifests itself through the lazy recourse in our national dialogue to primitive and antiquated explanations for rape: broken…
Those interested in the DA or inadvertently exposed to it would be aware of an on-going, often heated, discussion about the ideological underpinnings of the party and its political future. Contributors have included Gareth van Onselen (and again), DA executive communications director Gavin Davis and former party leader Tony Leon. There were also two pieces…
I recently dealt with at least three queries about the voting rights of permanent residents in South Africa, and specifically the change in their status and recognition. The first time I had to deal with this concern was in the run up to the 2011 local government elections when a Centurion resident told me his…
Dear Dr Dexter, The formal style of address may seem cold and harsh but I cannot bring myself to refer to you as comrade or Phillip, as I have always done. The man who sat so smugly next to Marius Fransman yesterday, singing the praises of the ANC was not the one I fought alongside…
The Council of Europe’s recent call for its members to investigate lowering the voting age to 16, while not a novel idea, is undoubtedly a controversial one. In South Africa the idea of lowering the voting age was first raised by former president Nelson Mandela in 1994 when, in an interview with Time magazine (May…
The Congress of the People, perhaps surprisingly to many, has been placed in a rather awkward position as “kingmaker” in a number of municipalities, primarily in the Western and Northern Cape. The position is challenging primarily because Cope has to decide whether it wants to throw its lot in with the DA, or side with…
The nett pay of councillors in Tshwane is apparently R18 000 a month, while their counterparts in Johannesburg and eKurhuleni earn between R13 000 and R14 000. If you live in Pretoria, Centurion, Mamelodi, Hammanskraal or surrounds, you put R36 000 a month into your ward and PR councillor’s pockets. Whether ANC or DA, in…
It is apparently improper to comment on South African politics without invoking God or religion more broadly. Last night a caller to 702 alleged that Mosiuoa Lekota had left the ANC because he had lost power and that his criticism of the ruling party only surfaced after the now (in)famous divorce. I was reminded of…
AmaBhunu bangabantu. iBhunu ngumuntu ngabantu … and they too have rights under our Constitution and the Freedom Charter. Tata Madiba said in 1994 that “never again will we be at war with one another”, why chant about killing and shooting? Is the bank of our history so bankrupt that we have to dig deep into…
The first time I saw a R20 note was in 1993 when I was six-years-old and we were living in Swaziland. I stumbled upon it in the garden and my mother said I could have it. Elated, I impatiently awaited the regular daily passing of the “sucker lady” (our then-version of Madam & Eve’s Mielie…
