Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Corruption and traditional leaders
[The people of North West] are angry about the threat to their livelihoods posed by alliances between the provincial government and traditional leaders, and the corruption they believe it has brought in its train. And, while the new ANC leadership might be ready to remove the premier, this is an issue they prefer to duck. In several provinces, traditional leaders in alliance with provincial governments are using their powers over land to enrich themselves at the expense of small farmers and their dependants. They do this by making deals with private companies that allow the firms to use the land, often for mining, in exchange for money which goes to local notables, not the citizenry.
