Late on Saturday morning, in true African time, a ramrod Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a flinty speech that was not only a preamble to the African National Congress’s verdict on youth league leader Julius Malema, but a warning sign to the rest of the party: ill-discipline will not be tolerated. By upholding the guilty verdict, the…
“As we mark the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’ birth, the most fitting tribute we can offer to the man, who first wrote and became famous under the pen name “Boz”, is to examine the ways in which his work still speaks to our lives.” – Eric G. Lorentzen __ It was the best of democracy,…
It seems politics has become nothing but a crusade in confusion, confusing the very same people who voted politicians into office. Politicians get caught up in the fruitless and wasteful game of politicking while bravely maintaining the lie that they are working for our interests. I must start by saying we need to understand that…
Juju bashing isn’t as much fun as it used to be. If you type Malema into Google, the second suggestion the browser makes is “Malema jokes”. The latest one is that his girlfriend has twins and Malema is wondering which of them is his. I’m not entirely comfortable with such jokes; I know some people…
It’s been a glorious summer in Cape Town. The heatwave had one and all at swimming pools and beaches all over the Cape. Long Street was packed with clubbers and tourists from all over the world. Drinks flowed freely: Hennessy, Bacardi, Hunters, Carling, you name it. Sadly, it was spoiled by talk of our beloved…
The strange nature of South African democracy in its static economic condition makes the position and function of so-called intellectuals and thought leaders within it very complex and almost dysfunctional. Those who consider themselves intellectuals are not, at face value, critically engaging with the patriarchal, racist and capitalist superpower structure which makes it almost impossible…
The African National Congress’s elective conference to be held in Mangaung in December is throwing up a whole host of interesting collateral “debates”, as the appeal against ANCYL president Julius Malema’s sentence handed down by the ANC disciplinary committee and the administration of Limpopo’s finances clearly demonstrate. As you may recall, just prior to the…
It was 1994 and a Canadian comic at a South African festival thought that given our apartheid history, he’d be edgy by poking fun at race. He got mere titters and derisory silences from the audience. He didn’t realise: we got race. We South Africans had been through race, come back and turned it inside…
By Maphale Moloi In the wake of the recent ANC centenary celebrations, many have commented on the party’s role in post-apartheid South Africa. Some have said that the ANC is living in the past and is no longer relevant to the youth and/or the plight of the average South African. Let’s step back for a…
The African National Congress, Africa’s oldest liberation movement, has a glorious and illustrious history. The ANC has for the majority of the 100 years of its existence held the hopes and aspirations of the majority of black people in South Africa. This is the ANC that has always been creative and industrious in its fight…
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