Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Nelson Mandela International Day is all about mobilizing people, governments, NGOs, and corporations to take steps every day to make this world a better place. The United Nations sent out a clarion call today for everyone to redouble efforts to meet the Mandela Day organization’s 2030 goals. Mandela Day goals Goal 1 – Provision of… Read more.
The world watched in restrained shock and resigned dismay this week as South Africans looted and pillaged in the name, and arguably at the behest, of their disgraced former president, Jacob Zuma. The defiant 79-year-old was finally convicted of contempt of court last month for refusing to attend an inquiry into state-capture corruption during his… Read more.
Related commentaries: Zuma rape… shithole countries… 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.
Scandals of all types have characterized Jacob Zuma’s presidency. I have decried those scandals in far too many commentaries. A case in point is “Jacob Zuma Issues Professional Fatwa against Cartoonist Zapiro,” December 22, 2008, which includes this prophetic cry: It is a fact, however, that Zuma got off scot-free on a charge of raping a… Read more.
People in Pretoria, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg took to the streets, insisting that corruption has worsened in South Africa since Zuma came to power in 2009… President Zuma caused nationwide anger last week when he dismissed Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and replaced him with Desmond van Rooyen. The move resulted in an immediate… 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.
Jacob Zuma, the constitutionally gaffe-prone president of South Africa, had his long-suffering people scratching their heads again last week. This time because it seems he saw nothing undemocratic, or even improper, in granting permission to one of his patrons, the Gupta family, to use a South African military base as their private airport. Evidently, the… 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.
