We learnt this week that the South African minister of communications can’t pin the city of Geneva in the state of Switzerland. But what of the state of our own nation as the government displays as many fractures as an orthopaedic ward? In parliament, DA leader John Steenhuisen asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to put country [...]
Last November, before an international audience gathered in Cape Town, I conducted an interview with former president FW de Klerk. One of the issues I canvassed with him was his take on the age-old issue of whether it is historical forces or individuals who change the course of history, or some combination of both. Cyril [...]
In 1966, as the US escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War, beleaguered president Lyndon Johnson and his administration denied the surge. Congressman (and later president) Gerald Ford coined the phrase “credibility gap” — the discrepancy between what a politician claims to be the case and the facts of the matter. Columnist Walter Lippmann suggested this [...]
To mark the 30th anniversary of FW de Klerk’s earth-shaking speech to parliament on February 2 1990, veteran journalist Tim du Plessis sent me an inquiry. “Can you describe”, he asked, “where you were and what you felt when you heard the news?” My answer – on the one speech ever delivered in parliament which [...]
