Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
On the white Aids denialists
Enter the Mbeki-defending goons that Tandwa quotes. Like Matthias Rath (the vitamin salesman), and Peter Duesberg (an academic who cannot get published in a peer-reviewed journal), Anthony Brink (an advocate) and Chris Rawlins (an accountant) are not recognised by any scientific forum as “experts” on HIV. To confer on them the title of “independent researcher” when they obviously do not have the skills to conduct such research, is an egregious error. The irony is that the privileged, old, white, and male AIDS denialists, while relying on the gullibility of young journalists, claim to be advancing a decolonial agenda.
