On how black anger and white obliviousness are used to foreground race in post-apartheid South Africa

My essay on how black anger, white obliviousness and the expedience of politics have foregrounded race in public dialogue in South Africa has just been published on Mampoer Shorts. It’s a 10,000-word “short”, so snazzy book-like cover aside, you should be able to read it in under two hours. It builds on an opinion piece I wrote earlier this year for the Daily Maverick at the height of debacle over Brett Murray’s ‘The Spear’. Read it, give me your thoughts, and if I haven’t died of shame from the self-promotion I’ll be engaging in during the coming weeks, consider me immortal. Also, in that instance, let me know if you’d like to be involved in a follow-on project I’ll be doing along the same theme next year. But for now, here’s an excerpt. The full essay is available on Mampoer for $2.99.

A shrewd bit of politics by South African opposition parties

Naysayers be damned, the decision made by almost all* the opposition parties in the National Assembly to bandy together today to table a motion of no confidence against president Jacob Zuma in terms of section 102 of the Constitution is a shrewd political maneuverer and a doffing of the cap to our democracy. Yes, they’ve been shrill and at times over wrought in the past, but had they not attempted this, they would not have been acting as ones faithful to the Republic of South Africa, as their oath requires.

The merits of such a motion are self-evident, but just in case there was any doubt, they spelled them out. They said (hyperlinks my own): “President Zuma no longer has the confidence of our political parties to serve as president on the grounds that under his leadership:

• The justice system has been weakened and politicised,
• corruption in the public service has spiralled out of control,
• unemployment levels continue to increase,
• the economy is weakening, and
• the right of access to quality education has been violated.”

Is the press complicit in reinforcing Luthuli House as the centre of the people’s power?

Everyone knows the ins and outs of the nation’s favourite soapie, Luthuli House—who is in whose camp, who got burnt by whom, who’s on the rise and who is going down. And as December approaches we receive minute-by-minute updates of the goings on.

Who is this engorging our minds with the fates of the personalities on Sauer Street? Why it’s the South African press of course. From their printed and pixel pages to the editorials, op-eds and TV and radio talk shows we learn of the Luthuli House personalities and their affiliates. From there it cascades, oozing its way through places of public dialogue. You can’t escape it. That’s the power of the press.