POLITICS
STEVEN FRIEDMAN: It hasn’t happened until it really happens
Keep calm and don’t believe anything political has happened until it actually has. This is a confusing time for anyone trying to follow politics through the media. We are told President Jacob Zuma is only days from removal — then that the governing ANC is battling over his future and so he may stay for months. We are told the state-capture inquiry by the police has progressed so much that Cabinet ministers will now be prosecuted — and this is promptly denied by the National Prosecuting Authority. Lists of new cabinets circulate, each based on less information than the last. None of this is good for the public’s political health. It creates fears and expectations that are never met, it blurs the divide between fact and fiction, and so shakes people’s confidence in what they read or see or hear in the media. And it helps fuel the view that politics here is about a small group of individuals – about a very few of us, not all of us. It also fuels the damaging sense that our future depe...
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