IN-DEPTH
SA — where hating is easier than thinking
Instead of coming up with ideas to solve the country’s problems, politicians are relying on division and rage
South Africans are angry people. That’s what I’m told as I travel up East Africa, on my way from Johannesburg to Russia. And as my motorcycle consumes the kilometres, I’ve been wondering about our acidic and insular political discourse. The doctors, medical researchers, artists, environmentalists and political activists I have met from Botswana to Kenya seem to know more about our politics than we know of theirs. A lot more. People keep asking me about President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, sometimes through the lens of tribalism. When I try to explain our politics and the various factions within the ANC — the nationalist, capitalist, socialist, black consciousness, religious, traditional, progressive and plain-out corrupt wings of the party — my explanations are beginning to sound strange. Discordant even. What is our politics? From the perspective of being outside SA but within Africa, I can’t help but thinking what we have is the politics of hate. EFF leader Julius Malema stirred up o...
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