From Reagan’s Hollywood charm to Nixon’s strategic depth, America’s most effective presidents surrounded themselves with brilliant advisors - a lesson Paul Mashatile, the likely next ANC president, would do well to heed as his party’s grip on national power continues to weaken, writes Tony Leon. Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, who served [...]
South Africa’s moral blindness, or one-eyed approach to a the 7 October attack, might be one reason for the country’s exclusion from a seat at Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday, writes Tony Leon. Why, you might reasonably ask, was the world’s “moral superpower” not present at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on Monday? Just to recap: In January [...]
It is too soon to reckon the consequences in America and the world after last week’s events. Except for the obvious conclusion that the boundaries in which normal political events and discourse are bordered have been stretched ever further, writes Tony Leon. George Bernard Shaw’s mordant line that “assassination is the extreme form of censorship” got [...]
Former president Thabo Mbeki’s lecture on historical materialism to KZN ANC comrades reveals a farcical ideological battle between the ANC and SACP over revolutionary labels, while real crises like mass job losses go unaddressed - echoing the dangerous political delusions and echo chambers that Scott Anderson’s new book shows led to Iran’s catastrophic 1979 revolution, [...]