Corruption

Panyaza Lesufi, the unpopular populist

Understandably two sections in the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment Act relating, respectively, to mother tongue education and schools' rights to set admission policy have sucked most of the oxygen out of the debate on this controversial legislation. There is a lot at stake here, including removing such decisions from the remit of school bodies [...]

The key political question on Simelane and Motsoaledi: ‘do I contradict myself?’

Every day, in the choices we make or don't select, we display a degree of dualism or opposing ideas jostling for our attention and selection. Poetically, Walt Whitman's 1892 epic poem on the human condition, "Song of Myself", summed this up neatly: "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I [...]

From Trump’s GOP to South Africa’s EFF: how the populists are not that popular

When Donald J Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president on 20 January 2017, he delivered a dystopian speech on the state of his nation, summarised as "American Carnage". Leaving that event, George W Bush, the 43rd president and last Republican to hold that office before Trump, remarked on his successor's oration: "That was some weird s..t." [...]

The rights and wrongs of measuring cabinet performance – and some unsolicited advice

I hope that the new government of national unity (GNU) both endures and delivers real change in the lives of many citizens. As one Cabinet minister expressed to me recently, the answer to estimates on its longevity is summed up in the acronym TINA (there is no alternative). Of course, his sentiment is sound, even [...]

From chaos theory to market reality: How minor shifts lead to major financial storms

"The butterfly effect" explains how a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon triggers a massive storm across Europe. As John Gribbin explains the work of meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who first developed this chaos theory: Some systems are very sensitive to their starting conditions, so that a tiny difference in the initial push you give [...]

Venezuela: A cautionary reflection of South Africa’s potential path

Consider an alternate history written for the 29 May elections in South Africa. As a work of historical fiction – based on real characters and actual events – it could include these "facts": The DA leader, the largest opposition party, is banned from participating in the poll; the ANC, the governing party, is accorded unfettered [...]

Hubris syndrome claims the pretend king of Gauteng

My recent reimmersion into the murky waters of SA politics during the negotiation for the new and very large government of national unity was a reminder of why I quit political leadership in 2007. I have renewed admiration for those who toil at the political grindstone but, politics like acting (and former British prime minister [...]

When legends overshadow truth: Beyond blaming Zuma

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, writer, and historian, noted in 2018 in the New York Review of Books that "the encrustations of mythologising and hero worship have gone beyond the point that they can be easily corrected". This phenomenon was neatly summarised in a line at the end of the 1962 Hollywood blockbuster movie, The man who shot Liberty Valance: When the legend becomes fact, [...]

National’ needs to be removed from the party label ‘African National Congress’

Last Friday evening, I attended a dinner in Cape Town addressed by the writer and associate editor of the conservative magazine, The Spectator, Douglas K Murray, and author of the best-seller "The Madness of Crowds". In an interview there with Gareth Cliff, Murray suggested that South Africa's case against Israel on genocide charges before the [...]

SA’s latest fit of morality sponsored by the ‘bankrupt’ ANC

In 1843, Lord Thomas Macaulay, an English politician and historian, wrote: "We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." Substitute the ANC government and update it to present times, and you achieve a neat fit for the crowing and posturing of President Cyril Ramaphosa and [...]

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