PETER BRUCE: SA so polarised that it's tearing at the seams
'The place is so polarised that you have to agree with people 100%, 100% of the time otherwise you're the enemy'
EXTRACT
The worst of the week, though, was reserved for President Cyril Ramaphosa. In New York for a host of meetings, he was grabbed for a quick (like, really quick) interview by Bloomberg.
Trying to counter Donald Trump's recent tweet that he wanted his secretary of state to "study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers", Ramaphosa stumbled badly and said "there is no killing of farmers or white farmers in SA".
Which is not true, as Ramaphosa knows. Only last year he told parliament: "We condemn the farm killings that continue to take place in our country, because we can never justify any form of taking of life. The farm killings must be brought to an end."
If Twitter is any guide (it probably isn't) SA has fragmented into one giant squabbling mess, incapable of contemplation and dedicated to the elimination of all debate. In SA every man is an island. Former DA strategist Ryan Coetzee, who now observes us from a distance, tweeted the other day that this "week in SA [is] interesting. The place is so polarised that you have to agree with people 100%, 100% of the time otherwise you're the enemy. And that's just inside the DA :) (It's even worse outside the DA!)" Something is wrong with a lot of us. One Twitter fight this past week is now heading for court after broadcaster Redi Tlhabi accused home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba of introducing ruinous visa regulations back whenever in a fit of rage after his ex-wife had allowed their child to travel inside SA with a cousin. It got ugly. Tlhabi won the popular battle but Gigaba announced he had instructed his lawyers to sue her for defamation. I doubt he has a winnable case but that's by t...
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