Litnet

"My guess is that the growing radicalism from the left will gain momentum, especially if things don’t get better. As it is now, they too are at sixes and sevens and have no workable solutions. Anger at the failures of the ANC and the betrayal of the revolutionary mandate is their only political fund. They will probably take the coming few years to unite, organise and consolidate before coming to take yet another bite out of the sinking leviathan."

"Put differently, Zuma revived Buthelezi’s pre-1994 messaging in 2023 with a blend of false pro-black advocacy, myopic rule-by-chiefs nonsense, and promises to wannabe politicians and tenderpreneurs of a return to rent-seeking practices reminiscent of the Gupta era."

"The decision that charts our collective future in South Africa is now in the hands of politicians. This frightens me."

"If an essay is good, one distrusts it straight away. I did not award a single distinction."

"It would be easy in South Africa today, preoccupied as it is with the result of its own parliamentary election, to overlook the importance of the Allied D-Day landings of 6 June 1944, which liberated the world from the Nazi scourge. But that would be a mistake."

"Crucially, graduates are anticipated to embody critical thinking skills, and so actively contribute to societal development and progress. Higher education plays a vital role in cultivating virtues such as respect, resilience, dignity, inclusivity and gender equality, thereby fostering a constructive platform for public discourse. Universities serve as a safeguard against crude, anti-democratic rhetoric."

"Although Schreiner’s ideas about the place of women, the stratified nature of their labour, constantly developed over the course of her life, she evidently has a blind spot in her letters about the non-white servants in her close circle."

"This note will address these developments in terms of 'Winners' and 'Losers', and of course we must begin with the first of the election’s big stories, the travails of the ANC."

"Perhaps the country most deeply affected by the ICC warrants, other than Israel itself, would be the USA. While itself not an ICC states party, US criticism of the Palestine case – in light of its previous support for the ICC warrants against Putin and Bashir, among others – exposes not only its double standards, but the shallowness of its much-touted moral compass."

"But suddenly the agenda has become denser and more complex. International issues, bad old South African racial politics, and opportunistic political engineering have all made an appearance. So let’s pinpoint some of the key issues."

"In examining the legal framework surrounding self-defence, it is evident that a state cannot assert this right when facing a threat from an armed group within an occupied territory, especially where that territory is kept under belligerent occupation."

"As is often the case with any bureaucratised system, the human is supplanted by numerical representation. For healthcare, one needs money." Emelia Steenekamp writes about her experience of private and public healthcare in South Africa, Canada and South Korea.

"As an author, I am constantly asked for PDF versions of my books. Sure, go ahead and help yourself; I mean, it’s not like I paid a proofreader, paid a designer and sourced the rights to use the artwork on the covers. Sure, go ahead and have a PDF copy on WhatsApp. And cast it as far as mistletoe throughout your entire village, so everyone can read my book while I never benefit a dime off it."

"Not only does Zuma challenge the ANC politically, but he also claims its heritage."

"Thirty years of democracy has eased the strained relations between the races of the apartheid years. There is a spontaneity, humour and verve in public life, in the shops and eateries, which is very refreshing to any outside visitor."

"Even the water sector reform after the political transition of 1994 has largely stuck to the direct municipal WSS delivery model from the apartheid era. A major difference, though, is that post-apartheid municipalities took on responsibility for service delivery in areas that had never been as well connected and managed as the previous white-only areas. This still hinders the bridging of these gaps."

"It is morally, ethically and democratically wrong to exclude the voices of people who live on the margins, to speak for them. Trans and gender-diverse identities and lives are undeniable; to deny them is to rewrite history and to engage in behaviour which is bullying and abusive."

"The weather could not be any more different from South Africa’s sunny Karoo to the freezing winters in Moscow, where sunlight may be there for only four hours a day!"

"What does social media say about you, and what could it say about others around you? Social media reveals more than just your basic likes, like listening to Nirvana and reading a lot of Tolkien, but also locks your thoughts and musings in time. TikTok, Facebook and YouTube can be a good way to know someone, but when potential danger signs are ignored, social media is a darker trip."

"It is easy in South African politics to blame Zuma, the preterit king of the superfluous, while failing to understand that the fundamental root of our current problems is extreme inequality."