Category: Politics

Politics both in theory and in terms of party politics, mostly focused on South Africa.

The boer is dead (#uniteZA)

Following the murder of Eugene Terre’Blanche on Saturday, plenty of good pieces discussing the relationship (or lack thereof) between the murder and Julius Malema’s constant singing of that charming folk-ditty “Kill the boer”. And while government officials on the scene were quick to insist that the murder had nothing to do with Malema’s singing of that song – that it was instead motivated by unpaid wages and general frustration towards a man who had a history of not treating his farm workers too well – we should also be wary of believing that simply because it’s a more comfortable explanation, and one which results in less worry for South Africa’s immediate future.

Because even if the workers were aggrieved at unpaid wages, or poor working conditions, it may still be the case that those frustrations were encouraged to reach boiling point via the “endorsement” for the the murder that they perceived Malema to be offering. It’s an easy answer to blame Malema, and it’s an easy answer to think he has no responsibility in this case.

And as usual, the easy answers are probably incomplete answers. As many others have argued, it’s a time for calm and sober reflection. As with the #speakZA campaign a couple of weeks ago, bloggers in SA have been rallying for calm, and for SA to not let the death of this horrible little man cause any unnecessary friction. Under the banner of #uniteZA, feel free to join by tweeting and/or blogging the message below:

South Africa stands at a crossroads – a time in which racial tensions run high and the world is focused on us. Neither the people of South Africa nor the country itself can afford to have negativity and irrational outbursts rule our daily lives.

To that end, UniteSA is an attempt to bring people from all corners of our nation together in a call for peace, calm and rational thought.

Various ministers have called for restraint as has President Zuma – certain organisations have chosen to use this time to push a political agenda and we appeal to them to allow the authorities the chance they need to resolve the issues.

We urge the people of South Africa to express faith in the police force and the justice system at this time.
We call upon the ANC to rein in Julius Malema appropriately and urge him to behave responsibly.
We call upon the AWB to continue to act responsibly after the tragic death of Eugene Terre’blanche
We call upon the National Government to plan for protection of farmers as they worry about their futures
We express our solidarity and empathy for those who have suffered because of crime and corruption in our country

We are far stronger united than we are apart.

Blogroll
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/
http://www.dreamfoundry.co.za/
http://www.6000.co.za
http://loveandpolitics.co.za
http://synapses.co.za
http://fsi.org.za
http://www.macgeek.co.za
http://www.futurechurch.co.za
http://www.robsramblings.co.za
http://antithesis.blognation.co.za
http://jhbprincess.blognation.co.za

Julius Malema is The Man

Originally published in The Daily Maverick.

Julius Malema likes to present himself as “working class”. He still identifies himself as a product of that class, despite the fact that the cost of his watch alone would equal the average annual income of roughly 20 working-class black South Africans.

How then are we to make sense of his self-proclaimed solidarity with people who struggle to feed themselves? South Africa remains a country of great inequalities and class distinctions linger. Are three houses and five cars required to escape the label of “working class”, instead of Malema’s two houses and three cars (according to reports)?

Continue reading “Julius Malema is The Man”

Bloggers for a free press (#SpeakZA)

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.

We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but an insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President. We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.

 

Blogs for free press

Bloggers For a Free Press

I’m sure you’re aware by now of the slander campaign launched by the ANC Youth League’s spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu against journalists they perceive to be against the Youth League. This campaign is especially directed against City Press journalist Dumisani Lubisi. You’ll remember that he was instrumental in exposing Julius Malema’s interests in various companies.

The move taken by the ANCYL is disturbing, especially their response to the letter written by 19 of the country’s most influential political journalists, asking the ANC to distance itself from the actions of the Youth League and Floyd Shivambu, where they basically told these journalists to sod off. More than that, Shivambu then threatened the journalists who refused to run his slanderous story.

This is a definite step towards dictatorial rule. I for one, am not willing to sit idly by as people in our ruling party flagrantly infringe on media freedom and other Constitutional rights.
I’ve invited a number of South African bloggers to publish a message to the ANC and the Youth League on Wednesday, condemning the actions of Shivambu and calling on them to distance themselves from such practices. We also reminds the ANC of the vital role played by the the press in the liberation struggle.

If you’re a South African blogger and are interested in joining, then drop me an email at sipho.hlongwane@gmail.com. Alternately, you can reach me on Twitter (@ComradeSipho). I’ll fill you in with
further details and put you on the SpeakZA mailing list.

If you’re on Twitter, the hashtag is #SpeakZA. Let’s get the word out there.
Sipho Hlongwane

On JZ’s call for a national dialogue on “our moral code”

Originally published in The Daily Maverick.

Many South Africans would support the recent call by President Jacob Zuma for a national dialogue on our moral code. While quips about foxes guarding henhouses may be the first thing to come to mind, two serious and separate issues are raised by this call: the desirability of such a dialogue, and the practical issue of who should take part.

On the first issue, perhaps we should start by noting that the perceived moral failings of some influential South Africans and the public response to these have a feature in common, namely a tendency to pluck a ready-made moral viewpoint off a shelf and then present that as either defence or accusation. Neither of these responses demonstrates commitment to moral reasoning or sensitivity to the fact that some issues cannot be resolved by appeal to dogma. They are, nevertheless, often successful in that new South Africans have been bred to be tolerant of difference and reluctant to criticise things they may not understand.

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Addicted to victimhood

Being married to someone who is obsessed with food has its upsides, in that the cooking of regular and delicious meals is something the Doctor enjoys doing (or so she claims, after years of doing so). I can apparently cook too, but this is a hypothesis that I’d rather not subject to much testing, in that I fear the loss of a potentially undeserved reputation. But it has its downsides too, in that her time spent thinking about food, and reading in the discipline of “Food Studies”, involves having to listen to and read an awful amount of utter tosh. Being a naturally inquisitive sort of fellow, I sometimes get caught in the crossfire, which led to us recently having a conversation about the evils of high-fructose corn syrup, which is apparently in everything.

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More on Maxwele and freedom of speech

A follow-up article on the Chumani Maxwele incident, and the implications it has for free speech in South Africa, appeared in the Durban Mercury (22/02/10) and the Cape Times (23/02/10). My original text can be found here.

Giving Jacob Zuma the finger

February is turning out to be a rather uncomfortable month for South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma. First we had Babygate, and now it appears that some of his goons have taken to abusing and arresting those whom they believe to not be showing sufficient respect to the Father of the Nation (or at least, a growing proportion of it).

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Forgive him if you like, but Jacob Zuma should resign

South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, has recently provided an effective negative proof of the value added by a competent press office. In an embarrassing attempt to manage an embarrassing situation, the South African public have received:

  1. A statement dated February 3, in which JZ confirms his “love-child”, while berating us for caring about his private affairs.

  2. The leaking of some “evidence” on the same day which suggests that JZ and Sonono Khoza are in fact married, and that the existence of the most recent child does therefore not suggest JZ was cheating on his 37 other wives.

  3. A further statement/apology dated February 6, in which someone finally cottons on to the fact that the man in question was elected without the moral currency or credibility which might otherwise allow us to respect his wishes in this matter, and that an apology might therefore be necessary.

  4. Communication from god, reminding us that “faith dictated that he [JZ] be absolved“, and suggesting that we should “leave this episode behind us, regrettable as it is, and move on as a nation”.

God spoke through Ray McCauley’s National Interfaith Leadership Council (NILC), as she has tended to do since they beat out her previous spokespersons, the South African Council of Churches, in what must have been a rather difficult contest to arbitrate. I’ve discussed the NILC previously, and argued against the popular notion that religious groups like the NILC have any special claim to moral knowledge.

But this incident, and this President, is about more than simple moral issues. It’s also not simply about the convoluted definitions of “culture” we can come up with in order to justify doing whatever the hell we want. Normally, I’m a strong supporter of the idea that I don’t want or need my political leaders to be exemplars of moral virtue – their job is to offer political leadership, and I don’t really care what they do in their private lives.

However, cases like these do intrude into the public consciousness, and – when placed alongside rape trials, dodgy arms-deal allegations, shady friends, financial mismanagement, reckless sexual behaviour in a country blighted by HIV/AIDS and so forth – they do provide a fair amount of evidence of a lack of sound judgement, and a poor awareness of voter interests.

As mentioned earlier, I don’t care who JZ sleeps with, or what drugs he takes, or anything else to do with his real or imagined private life. I do care that political leaders think carefully about what they do, and that they have the intellectual capacity to realise the implications that their choices might have. JZ clearly lacks one or both of these abilities.

So, forgive him if you like. Pray about it if you think that will help, or eat a crystal (I think that’s how it’s supposed to work?). But forgiveness does not mean we should forget about competence – and in this case, have we not already forgiven enough incompetence?

Killing gays may not be helpful

As reported in a previous post, Uganda is currently considering a bill that would impose the death penalty or life sentences on homosexuals. Furthermore, the proposed bill criminalises those who do not report a suspected gay person within 24 hours, and will most likely also have the effect of dissuading health care professionals in Uganda from assisting anyone who is gay – as well as dissuading gay people from seeking treatment, seeing as outing yourself as gay could land you in jail.  It’s worth reading this story on NPR to see the extent to which American Evangelical Christians are prepared to foment hatred and prejudice in order to buttress their support bases in the 3rd World – after all, surely all those folk in Africa will one day be able to afford to buy their sermons on DVD?

Continue reading “Killing gays may not be helpful”