Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Julius Malema (30) is president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) – the youth arm of South Africa’s ruling party. Unfortunately, he behaves more like a wannabe gangsta than a future political leader. It’s arguable though that he’s merely emulating the behavior that catapulted his mentor, Jacob Zuma, to the presidency. This explains why… Read more.
I am acutely mindful that my commentaries on the growing pains of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are taking on the specter of flogging a dead horse. This is why I am loath to write yet another one on the following regressive phenomenon that is now unfolding there: African leaders once personified unbridled despotism. Now they’re… Read more.
Truth be told, there was always a disconnect between Winnie Mandela’s behavior and the Joan-of-Arc vestments she wore during the last throes of Apartheid rule in South Africa. More to the point, her behavior always gave the impression that those vestments were covering up character traits that were more Ma Barker than Indira Gandhi. But anti-Apartheid supporters in the West overlooked her intemperate,… Read more.
They should please not choose someone of whom most of us would be ashamed. Our country deserves better. We’re very worried that [Zuma] had relations with a woman who regarded him as a parent; and, although he is very likable, we have to ask ourselves: ‘What is happening in the ANC?'” (Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond… Read more.
Her haunting melodies gave voice to the pain of exile and dislocation which she felt for 31 long years. At the same time, her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us. (Former South African president Nelson Mandela) I must confess that I knew so little about Miriam Makeba’s music that when… Read more.
In a truly extraordinary development, Gwede Mantashe, the secretary general of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), called a press conference on Saturday to announce that: [T]he party’s top-level National Executive Committee [NEC] has decided to recall the president of the republic before his term of office expires. Then, in a bit of political doublespeak… Read more.
I am proud of the fact that I participated in the US-led international protests during the 1980s that precipitated the end of white rule (Apartheid) in South Africa. And I remember thinking back then that a South Africa ruled by liberated blacks could be the beacon of hope and the land of opportunity for Africans… Read more.
“No good deed goes unpunished” and “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” are two aphorisms that sum up the scandal now tarnishing the reputation of the most powerful woman on television, Oprah Winfrey. Because, less than a year after the January grand opening of her $40-million “leadership academy for girls” in Johannesburg,… Read more.
Last summer, I wrote an article condemning the South African government for its provincial policy towards the treatment of HIV/AIDS, which kills more people in South Africa than in any other country in the world. I condemned the government because, instead of adopting the established pharmacological protocols that have proved most effective, it sent Health… Read more.
The plaintive theme of the 16th International AIDS Conference concerned the increasing incidence of HIV infections amongst women. Indeed, speaker after speaker exhorted women – through commiseration, lamentations and admonitions – to assert greater control over their (sex) lives by zealously protecting themselves against contracting the virus. And they instructed women to prevent this, in… Read more.
