Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
It speaks volumes that South African President Jacob Zuma is even more gaffe prone than former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Zuma, for example, incited shock and mockery when he pronounced his belief that taking a shower after sex with an HIV-positive woman would reduce his risk of being infected. The difference of course is… Read more.
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.
Much is being made of the fact that President Jacob Zuma refused to meet with First Lady Michelle Obama during her week-long official visit to South Africa and Botswana, which ends on Sunday. Indeed, it’s arguable that he intended to convey a deliberate slight by arranging only for his female minister of prisons to greet… 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.
Congratulations to all South Africans on what was by all accounts “a well-run and highly successful election.” Especially since this stands in stark contrast to national elections on the continent – in places like Kenya, Congo and Zimbabwe – where post-election violence nullified results and forced untenable and unsustainable power-sharing governments on the electorate. Of course, there was… Read more.
Last week, Jacob Zuma – the man generally expected to be the next president of South Africa – aped Muslim jihadists by unleashing a pack of lawyers on “Zapiro” – the nom de plume of his country’s most celebrated political cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro. Zuma claims that the Zapiro cartoon pictured above “injured his dignity and reputation“, and he’s demanding Shapiro’s life savings… 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.
