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
Israeli universities do not undermine human rights. Israel is one of the freest democracies in the world and political dissent is widespread on Israeli campuses. Israeli universities have a level of political independence we can only envy in our own universities, which are unduly politically influenced and sickeningly politically correct. When the University of Johannesburg should be focusing on academic excellence and freedom, or the problems assailing SA, it wastes its time going on a crusade against Israel. There is more academic freedom in Israel than here and while political correctness has become the dictatorship of the left in SA, universities abroad are flourishing. – Rhoda Kadalie, writing in Business Day (and demonstrating a rather limited knowledge of conditions in Israel)
