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
On Zuma and defamation
Mr Zuma mistakenly assumes that loyalty to the ANC is synonymous with loyalty to him. His assumption is both factually and constitutionally untenable. Falsely or erroneously, Mr Zuma believes that his recall as President was against the wishes of the ANC. However, it was the ANC NEC itself that insisted on Mr Zuma resigning as President of South Africa. Furthermore, it is not only the wishes of the ANC that matter. Mr Zuma offers no evidence that the people of South Africa were opposed to his recall. The people have an interest in what goes on in the ANC not least because it is the majority governing party.
