Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
The African National Congress (ANC), headed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, has lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of Apartheid. It won only 40 percent of the vote, a humiliating drop from the 58 percent it secured in 2019. Granted, the M.K. party, a rebel faction of the ANC led by… Read more.
Thirty years of Black rule has seen South Africa degenerate from the beacon of Africa into just another basket case on the Dark Continent. And I have decried and chronicled each distressing milestone of its patented descent into the heart of darkness. Chronicling South’s squandered freedom I joined the anti-Apartheid movement in the early 1980s. In the grand scheme… Read more.
The accusation of genocide is credible Israel appears guilty as accused. The US is Israel’s most committed defender in the international community. Yet, even President Biden has warned Israel that it is losing international support because of its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. But nothing betrays Israel’s genocidal intent quite like Israeli government ministers threatening to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Furthermore, discussions about resettling displaced… Read more.
Corruption, incompetence, lawlessness, and the spectre of racial retribution are driving South Africa into the same dysfunctional shithole where Zimbabwe has been festering for the past 30 years. I have lamented this fateful symmetry in many commentaries, most notably in “South Africa ‘Betraying Its Values’,” May 13, 2011, “Zuma Doing to South Africa What Mugabe… Read more.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) gave President Jacob Zuma an ultimatum on Monday: resign by Wednesday or be impeached on Thursday (via vote of no-confidence). True to form, the hopelessly beleaguered Zuma strutted and fretted his case on TV until the eleventh hour and then resigned. No doubt he’s now hoping the sinecure he… Read more.
Justice for Oscar Pistorius Oscar Pistorius became more famous after he murdered his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, than he ever was as a track star. It’s like how O.J. Simpson became more famous after he murdered his wife, Nicole Brown, than he ever was as a football player. The fateful symmetry began with Pistorius’s trial. Just like O.J.’s trial in America, the media… Read more.
For a little context, here is a relatively lengthy excerpt from “China Buying Up Political Dominion Over the Caribbean (Latin America, and Africa),” February 22, 2005, in which I presaged (almost 10 years ago) the spectre – not only of countries selling their sovereignty to China for easy cash, but of China placing increasingly mercantilist… Read more.
His family finally let him go…. Condolences to my friends and comrades in South Africa; although, it speaks volumes about what a beloved and influential man Nelson Mandela was that people all around the world are grieving his loss just as much. In fact, so inspiring was Mandela that, in his tribute just moments ago,… Read more.
Here is what I wrote six years ago after South Africa’s ruling ANC dumped Thabo Mbeki in favor of Jacob Zuma as party leader, thereby ensuring an ignominious end to Mbeki’s tenure as the country’s second democratically elected president: It’s an insult to Mbeki’s distinguished career of public service that he’s being so unceremoniously upstaged… Read more.
It has become de rigueur for celebrities from around the world to make pilgrimages to South Africa just for self-indulgent photo ops with Nelson Mandela. Nobody has lamented this trend more than I: He’s treated more as a tourist attraction these days (like the Statue of Liberty or, perhaps more to the point, a Carnival… Read more.
