International Politics

Now, more than ever, SA must reconsider its stance on Russia/Ukraine conflict

There will be a lot on the agenda during this week’s visit to Pretoria of German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. It is worth noting that last February when Russia launched its disastrous invasion of Ukraine, Bearbock’s boss, German chancellor, Olaf Scholtz, described the event as Zettenwende or “a changing of the times”. And in the 17 intervening [...]

Cyril can’t see the forest for the magic money trees

The genius dark television drama-comedy Succession, concerning the inner angst of super-rich media family the Roys, ended recently . Dynastic founder of the family empire, the monstrous Logan Roy, offered this withering put-down to his four dysfunctional children: “You are not serious people.” That’s a pretty good epitaph for the comedy of errors and worse [...]

It seems ANC chicanery can bring deeply divided US parties together

You have to hand it to the ANC and our spectacularly misnamed department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco). Both have achieved the rarest of rare feats: uniting the bitterly factitious and brutally acrimonious Democrats and Republicans in the US Capitol. The two major parties, which control the three branches of the US government, agree [...]

‘Nonaligned’, ‘pick up the rand’, ‘president’: when words mean fokol

American dissident and writer James Baldwin once noted you can judge the state of a nation’s educational level by the quality of its political speech. By this metric, and on both measures, SA today scores off the charts. Hot on the heels of the global report (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) revealing that 81% [...]

What ails our gaffe-prone president?

“Senescence” is defined as the condition or process of deteriorating with age. This week’s video announcement by President Joe Biden that he will seek re-election as US president next year sent the commentary class into overdrive on the risks of senility or physical impairment afflicting Biden, who would be 82 at his inauguration. Cognitive decline [...]

WASP patriarchy leaps from pages of Oppenheimer biography

On July 25 2000, the night the Concorde crashed shortly after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport  in Paris, I was a guest of Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer at their sumptuous beachside home outside Durban. The purpose of the dinner was to explain to one of the most significant economic players in SA’s history, [...]

Soon there may be no part of SA that’s more Swiss than Guatemalan

SA is obviously a deeply divided country. It is also, bewilderingly, a country which splits itself between what can be termed its large Guatemala section and the small enclave demarcated as Switzerland. In Guatemala, rated one of the more lawless and violent countries in Latin America, it’s the rule of the gangs and the corrupt [...]

Bill Browder and Tony Leon argue that money, not morality, dictates South Africa’s support for Vladimir Putin

King Charles III has conferred a signal honour on South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. He has invited him on a state visit to Britain this month, the first by a foreign leader since the king came to the throne. That is in spite of South Africa’s refusal to condemn Russia’s merciless war in Ukraine. In [...]

ANC candidates sing from the same ideological hymn sheet

To see how little distinguishes the lead candidates for the ANC presidency when it comes to policy and ideology, consider their stance on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill currently before parliament. In June 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa, apparently famed for his consensual approach to public policy, announced that NHI was “coming to you whether [...]

Democracy is slowly chipping away at the denialists in the US

Last Tuesday, election day for the mid-terms in the US, found famed American historian and presidential envoy Deborah Lipstadt thousands of kilometres from home. Instead, she was addressing a seminar at the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town. Lipstadt, who achieved celluloid fame via her portrayal by Rachel Weisz in [...]

Go to Top