Quote of the week
Early in 2016, a racist outburst by a white woman in KwaZulu-Natal, Penny Sparrow, ridiculing Black beachgoers as ‘monkeys’, and announcing that thenceforth she would ‘address the [B]lacks of South Africa as monkeys’, published in her online profile, was quickly disseminated countrywide. It convulsed South Africa in shame and acrid anger. The [Constitutional] Court was not unaffected. Previous members of the Constitutional Court took comfort in reflecting, with evident satisfaction, on the absence of racially loaded and racially defined splits. Dramatically, these now fractured the Court.
"Rainbows and Realities: Justice Johan Froneman in the Explosive Terrain of Linguistic and Cultural Rights" - Constitutional Court Review
In the course of his gluttonous plundering, “the movement” and/or individuals in “the movement” gained from these sordid dealings. Through all this, he was protected, like many other businessmen of his bent. The shadowy Majali was representative of a network of proxy businessmen and entities that serve ruling-party heavyweights in various sectors of the economy. Be they Chancellor House, Imvume or a host of smaller, but well-connected businesses at provincial and local levels, these proxies give the lie to the ruling party’s pronouncements on a tough anti-corruption stance. Unscrupulous businessmen and their political sponsors have been able to use the name of the party to strong-arm parastatals and government departments into giving them tenders. This network lies at the heart of the institutionalisation of corruption in our country. Sandi Majali has taken many dark secrets to the grave with him. What he did leave behind was a legacy of crookedness that goes deep into the heart of the ruling party, the state and the society. – Mondli Makhanya on Sandi Majali
