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
Jacob Zuma’s contempt of court
It is unbecoming and irresponsible of a person in Mr Zuma’s position to wilfully undermine the law in this way. Mr Zuma had every right and opportunity to defend his rights, but he chose, time and time again, to publicly reject and vilify the Judiciary entirely. I have already detailed the lengths to which this Court has gone in this matter to safeguard Mr Zuma’s rights despite his insolence towards this Court. Consequently, there is no sound or logical basis on which Mr Zuma can claim to have been treated unfairly or victimised by this Court. His attempts to evoke public sympathy through such allegations fly in the face of reason. They are an insult to the constitutional dispensation for which so many women and men fought and lost their lives.
