By Indira Govender*
The Social Justice Coalition’s Freedom Day toilet queue was quite an achievement, considering that the last time such a large crowd of Capetonians took to the streets in protest was against the US invasion of Iraq.
It’s Time To Be Offended
April 24, 2011 By 7 Comments
If the murder of Andries Tatane is a watershed moment in public perceptions of state violence after Apartheid, it is also teaching us a thing or two about South Africa’s media.
Had this police murder happened in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya, we would probably all be glued to our TV screens, praising the BBC or Al-Jazeera for their coverage in bringing images that brought home the extent of the oppression in those countries and the bravery of protesters.
What do we do in South Africa?
We are all Andries Tatane
April 14, 2011 By 6 Comments
By An Anonymous Reader
South Africa is far from what Tunisia was like pre-revolution (for one it is not governed by a one-party police state; or it does conducts mass arrests of its opponents; and if you insult the president you don’t get tortured and jailed indefinitely), but the parallels of small-town cops beating to death a South Africa Everyman because he was angry with poor or non-existent service delivery (water, electricity, roads, housing) are eerily reminiscent of what happened to a certain fruit vendor in southern Tunisia. (Here‘s video footage from South African TV news of the murder.)
But if you asked someone in Meqheleng where Andries Tatane was murdered (yes, I did look up the largest township in Ficksburg in the Free State Province) whether they are as frustrated as your typical Tunisian circa 2010, I wonder what they would reply?
Would the ANC’s proper electoral mandate and liberation credentials outweigh the impression that those in power–personified by President Jacob Zuma, and his Ministers or ANC leaders like Tokyo Sexwale, Sicelo Shiceka, and Siphiwe Nyanda, etcetera–are amassing wealth and governing just like Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali?
My hunch is a few years from now the residents of Meqheleng or any of the townships or squatter settlements won’t care how legitimate the ruling party’s mandate is: poor service delivery is poor service delivery.
You know at least for now in further Tunisia parallels the people of Ficksburg have ratcheted things up a bit.
Which leads me this:
