Andrew Sullivan joins the calls for Obama to release his “original birth certificate”:
So many readers are furious that I have dared to ask the president to show the original copy of his birth certificate. The reason for demanding it is the same reason for demanding basic medical records proving Sarah Palin is the biological mother [...]

Read this account of the Judicial Services Commission, in which a seemingly thoughtful and knowledgeable judge candidate is subjected to a series of attacks over his religious views, his race, the fact that he’s not part of the same club as one of his interlocutors, and a trumped-up accusation that he destroyed the career of [...]

Critics of “transformation” in South African society often argue that the transformation process, ostensibly intended to redress the injustices of apartheid, is in reality designed to entrench the ANC’s hold on political power. Without weighing in on that particular debate, I will say how I surprised I am that Cosatu’s own press releases have taken [...]

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes about leadership, in a long paragraph that deserves to be quoted in full:
Gandhi thought people should generally be nicer to Untouchables but other than that the caste system was just fine, and the best way forward for India was to eradicate modern technology and revert to an agrarian state of proto-nature, a [...]

(Note: I’m back! My sincere thanks Mayibuye Magwaza for maintaining this blog in my absence.)
Eusebius Mckaiser in the Mail & Guardian discusses the future of COPE, a political party that has been so quiet since the election that most people could be excused for forgetting its existence.
Although his diagnosis is pessimistic, I think Mckaiser nevertheless [...]

by Mayibuye Magwaza
This will probably be my last post - Laurence should be back soon.
South Africa’s Constitution is on a pretty high pedestal in South African political discourse. We are informed that it is progressive and wonderful and in general, it’s rarely questioned or challenged.
This is good, to the extent that it ought to frame [...]

Mpumelelo Mkhabela asks the following question about the controversy surrounding Jacob Zuma’s latest “Jesus” remarks:
The South African Council of Churches is very angry that the president has repeated his remarks that the ANC will rule until the Second Coming of Jesus. Casual talk in this context is normally used when a person vows that something [...]

Reihan Salam at The American Scene has some thoughts on South Africa.

Democratic Capitalist speculates on whether Jacob Zuma’s style of leadership will be successful:
[B]y Zuma’s mates own admission, he’s not great with money and yet this is the guy who is expected to negotiate South Africa through the current financial and economic crisis and the social problems that come with it… yet despite his own “short-comings” [...]

Should opposition parties treat Jacob Zuma with a certain degree of respect simply because he occupies the office of the presidency? Michael Trapido, Pierre de Vos and the DA’s own Athol Trollip seem to think so, and I agree. Politeness is one mark of a virtuous and civilised society, and while it is not always [...]

During the campaign, Jacob Zuma mastered the art of telling audiences what they wanted to hear. He would appear before Afrikaans farm communities, black township residents, left-wing university students and business-owning investors, assuring each group equally that their interests would be looked-after by the new government. Zuma was also notoriously reluctant to talk about policy, [...]

Everybody knows Floyd Shivambu after his (in)famous interview with Redi Direko. But did you know that he also has a blog?
For a sample of his writing, check out this post, in which he likens COPE to (among others) the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and rebels in the Niger Delta.

Reader Mayibuye Magwaza thinks I’m letting the DA off the hook too easily in this post:
Sure, you’re complaining about counting heads in parliament as a benchmark for gender equality. However, I think there’s something to it. If the DA has failed to internally develop female leaders to the extent that Zille really couldn’t find anyone [...]

Pierre De Vos has some tactical criticism for Cosatu:
First, Cosatu pulled a cheap - but ultimately doomed - stunt by launching an ill-advised equality court application to challenge the composition of the Zille’s cabinet. Now Die Burger is reporting that Cosatu is threatening to institute a motion of no confidence in Zille and her cabinet [...]

Michael Trapido takes an optimistic view of Pieter Mulder’s accession to the Zuma cabinet in this post:
During the Zuma presidency land redistribution as well as the plight of farmers in general are likely to become, among others, items requiring top priority. Accordingly, in practical terms, there can be no doubting that Mulder will and should [...]