JUSTICE MALALA: How we became cheapened by our heroes and liberators
What we are seeing is so coarse and cheap you just wonder how we will find our way back
I have told this story a few times before, but it is just so good that I am going to tell it one more time. Please allow me. Just one more time. It’s back in the early 2000s. I get invited to a meeting with a Nigerian newspaperman in London. We agree to do breakfast on a Saturday. He was flying in from SA. I am sitting in the Dorchester Hotel salivating over the breakfast menu. The last time I ate there was with the late, great ANC youth leader and presidential spokesperson Parks Mankahlana. The eggs Benedict looked extremely appealing. My breakfast date was late, so I stuck my nose in my book. My peace was disturbed by someone shouting: "What’s wrong with you South Africans?" It was my breakfast date. He was holding a copy of that week’s Mail & Guardian in his hand. The paper revealed that our then deputy president, Jacob Zuma, had accepted a bribe of R500,000 to protect some arms deal beneficiaries from prosecution. My guest was appalled. Not at the corruption of our deputy presid...
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