While Cyril Ramaphosa traded shame and fury in Parliament over SA’s jobs catastrophe, three of the world’s foremost historians gathered in Franschhoek to offer the kind of honest reckoning our leaders refuse to have with themselves, writes Tony Leon. Two sobering insights were offered last week on the state of SA Inc. Last Tuesday, the Quarterly [...]
Join George Herald journalist Marguerite van Ginkel as she sits down with Tony Leon. Watch the full interview for a candid conversation filled with history, wisdom, and practical insights from one of South Africa’s most experienced political voices. https://youtu.be/nM6G6uhg8Dw
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 [...]
Hear the full episode here: https://shorturl.at/R6QQV
Guardian journalist John Crace coined the killer phrase “aural valium” to describe the desperate-sounding, essentially misplaced, and meaningless, optimism of besieged British prime minister Rishi Sunak. Last Thursday, Sunak’s Conservative Party lost two heartland constituencies to resurgent Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates respectively, suggesting the Tories are on course to a sweeping defeat in next [...]
Headline articles in two influential British newspapers encapsulated the contradictions in the SA story: its boundless promise in one and its disastrous profile in another. One of the most popular UK broadsheets (read serious) newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, published its latest travel awards based on the votes of its readers. SA came out tops as [...]
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 [...]
Never underestimate the electoral hay ultranationalist leaders harvest by attacking “the West” when their at-risk regimes are imperilled. I recall November 1977 when I was a first-year student at Wits University, observing hardline nationalist prime minister John Vorster deliver a furious speech at the Film Trust Arena in Johannesburg on the eve of the white [...]
I arrived in London on Tuesday, the day of a political revolution. Not that any observer would have noticed from the apparent autumnal normalcy of the bustling UK capital, abuzz with busy shoppers, snarled traffic and crisp weather. But it was a day of extraordinary change. Out went Liz Truss, the shortest serving and most [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnimqiRSxgs
