Helen Zille's faction/embittered approach to politics normally grinds my turkey, but a paragraph in her most recent weekly newsletter stood out as being congruent with my stance on Zuma's ascension to power:  read more »

I have a growing sense that as a nation, South Africa is heading towards a knife edge. In just a few months Zuma goes to trail (in which the prosecutors are calling over 200 witnesses). A few months thereafter, we go to the polls to vote for a new president (during which the president-elect will still be standing trial for corruption). As recipes go, this does not bode well for a peaceful transition between power regimes.  read more »

Now that Jacob Zuma has become the ANC President, I predict that as of tomorrow morning there'll be a renewed intake of immigration applications at the Australian embassy from a whole bunch of disgruntled white South Africans.

In the run up to today's election outcome it has been a regular occurrence for white South Africans, that I've come across, to be overheard asking, "What will our plans be if Zuma becomes President (of the country)?"

While there is reason to be concerned regarding the cloud hanging over Zuma's head  read more »

While I've never really taken an active interest in politics I have nevertheless been keenly aware of the shifts in the political landscape of South Africa and how they affect the narrative pulse of our nation. I've gathered this information and formed the perspectives I have based on some fairly superficial gleanings from the media reporting on political events.

In particular, I've had some strong emotional responses of late as I've been considering the shifts leading up to this weekends ANC National Conference and the recent branch nominations for the party's president. Unsurprisingly, Jacob Zuma has wrapped up the nominations process, and I've begun to wonder to myself how he has gathered so much support when one considers the saga's he's been invovled in (generally corrupt relationship with Schabir Shaik and a pragmatic approach to preventing the contraction of HIV)? Surely, rational people would not nominate a fellow with such a cloud hanging over his head?  read more »

Thanks to Rob Hooper for the dash of artistic patriotism as Saturday's Rugby World Cup looms ...

Motivate staff, put in place better technology and improve facilities.

This is the solution our new director general of the Department of Home Affairs is placing his bets on in trying to root out corruption in the department. Sounds awfully simplistic to me! Are the efforts of "motivating staff, putting in place better technology and improving facilitates" not hygiene factors in making any organisation effective? Who says they are the solution to rooting out corruption?

How does this bloke know that this ploy will work? It sounds to me like he's under pressure to assert a strategy to deal with a heavily complex issue and has resorted to a simplistic answer that has sounded good in previous contexts. If only he had a way of exploring the problem to some degree of depth to see what emergent solutions might come about. Look, his solutions might be the right ones, but if he has not explored the context of the problem sufficiently, he runs the very real risk of applying "best practice" to a problems that it as averse to best practice as HIV/AIDS is averse to prevention.

I'm not one for sad or painful books. I'll happily go to a movie that I know will pull the emotional heart-strings, but I'm definitely not one for investing time and effort in traversing through hundreds of pages of something that will induce sensations of pain, guilt, remorse or some of those other wonderfully melancholic emotions.

Thanks to some fairly unrelated events I have found myself remembering one such book that I read a few years back. I seem to have relegated it to the deepest, darkest parts of my memory reserves in trying to forget that I ever read it. The aforementioned culprit is Antjie Krog's acclaimed work, Country of My Skull. The book is an in-depth, personal narrative "with the goal of capturing the overwhelming moral, emotional, and historical complexity of the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa."

I almost didn't have a choice in reading the book ...  read more »

With people getting stoned to death, traffic police pulling ridiculous stunts to earn more money, the axing of our Deputy Minister of Health, the dubious drinking habits of our Minster of Health and the incessant issue around renaming towns one can get pretty down about our country. Thankfully, Jeremy Nell and Trash Media bring some (comic) relief.

 read more »

I just love this take on modern south African culture ...

I've been a part of the South African blogosphere for about 2 years now. It is still a very young blogosphere by global standards and is fighting hard to establish itself. There are some insanely clever people playing in this space and I am proud to be playing amongst them. As I look back on the last two years it seems to be me that the SA blogging movement has been moving in the same direction - towards establishing a significant presence in the global blogosphere boosted by innovative thinking and relevant content.

Within the past few months, pretty much since 2007 began, I have however begun noticing a change in this story. There is now a level of dissent within the SA blogging community that I have not seen before - and it has revolved mainly around the annual SA blog awards, and to some extent around the "lets-meet" gatherings that have been organized by some prominent bloggers (to read some what this looks like click here, here, here and finally, here)

There are three observations/recommendations that I have about this situation:  read more »