There were symbols aplenty, and some ghosts from glories past, at the ANC local government manifesto launch on Monday evening. In ancient Rome, “augury” was the practice of interpreting omens from the observed behaviour of birds. Two days ago in Tshwane there was no shortage of auguries in the ruling party bash. First was the [...]
Why do governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests? That paradoxical question was at the heart of Barbara Tuchman's 1984 popular history, The March of Folly. In her panoptic sweep from the wooden horse at Troy to the quagmire of US folly in Vietnam, she noted: "Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government [...]
Last Thursday, as my column, “Do the ANC’s small disasters signal the large collapse?", for our sister publication Business Day was in the works, I had no idea an event in parliament would provide another example of my thesis. In the Business Day column, I catalogued the serial chapters of ineptitude and crass negligence, from unpaid staff and tax [...]
Schadenfreude — taking pleasure in the misery of another — is not regarded as a civic or social virtue. Still, it was difficult for SA’s long-suffering citizens — long reconciled to the ineptitude and crassness of the governing ANC — to suppress some delight knowing many of the sins our political overlords have visited on [...]
A millennium or so ago, sometime between the first and second centuries, the Roman poet Juvenal asked a question that resonates now in troubled SA. “Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes?” or “Who will guard the guards themselves?” remains key, especially for a country which, on the one hand, celebrates its constitution and, on the other, finds [...]
