South Africa’s Mail & Guardian reported a few days ago that the secretary of Shabir Shaik (the Jacob Zuma associate comvicted of fraud) once testified in court that her boss “has to carry a jar of Vaseline because he gets fucked all the time (by politicians), but that’s okay because he gets what he wants […]
Struggles over memory are commonplace in contemporary South Africa. The 1980s are an especially contested part of its past. That decade witnessed a mass resurgence of popular struggles that picked up a thread of civil opposition going back to the 1976 Soweto uprising. From outside South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) stepped up its armed struggle and sanctions campaigns; inside the country the United Democratic […]
I finally had a chance to read Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s profile of Jacob Zuma that appeared in “The New Yorker” on the eve of the World Cup final. You need a password to read the piece. But don’t bother. It’s very elementary stuff for junkies of South African politics. Written in a dry tone, it rehashes […]
Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s President, may not after all, rule as he promised “till Jesus comes“*.
Surprise, surprise, 100 days into his tenure as South Africa’s newest President, Jacob Zuma is getting high marks from the Financial Times. Like everyone else, before April’s elections the FT raised “the specter of some new heart of darkness descending on South Africa.” Now Zuma is their man. Descriptions of “… a solid and optimistic […]
