The High Court in Pretoria found Ntlemeza’s appointment to the Hawks to be unlawful and ruled that he be removed from office.
OPINION
’Tis the season to be marching against our president — or to use protest action to salvage neoliberalism and to save free market practices that never loved us. The Democratic Alliance thought it would strike while the iron is hot and lead another march to the provincial treasury in Limpopo at the same time as the Vuwani shutdown. The area has been a site of contested municipalities and continues to resist changes forged by the ANC.
In the meantime, a standoff brewed between the new minister of police, Fikile Mbalula, and the recently ousted head of the Hawks, Berning Ntlemeza.
Saving secret ballot
The impregnable Msholozi’s birthday ironically marked the day on which a nation’s vote of no confidence would reflect in actual bodies.
We’ve come to learn that a civic movement, while historic, often ends in vain. Action needs to happen at Parliament, inside a deeply tormented ANC, between the grey areas of political will at that level.
The United Democratic Front may be the saving grace for both the ANC and the country should the Constitutional Court find in favour of their case for members of the ANC to cast their no-confidence votes in secret, safe from party intimidation.
Can members of the ANC be trusted to put this moment to good use?
Does Ntlemeza’s bark bite?
After a court ruling that found him unfit to hold office, former Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza said he would appeal when his leave ended.
Mbalula is having none of it. He said the decision of the courts will be implemented and he advised Ntlemeza to stop being dramatic. The new minister of police has, very swiftly, appointed Lieutenant General Yolisa Matakata to act as the head of the unit.
Poser alert
On the warped side of race, Rachel Dolezal is in town to talk non-racialism and “transracialism”, a term she dreamt up to account for people like herself (or herself) who, in her mind, have crossed the racial colour line and view themselves as a race outside of their physical, actual race.
She goes on to deny not just race but transgender identities in a bid to rationalise her appropriation of race.
The most incredible part is the fact that she’s got so far with her rhetoric.
It’s a cutting example of whiteness, or what the internet calls whiting (getting away with being mediocre and inauthentic), even in the face of trying so hard to be black.
Rodney King remembered
Morgan Freeman has set out to create a documentary on the life of Rodney King, a man who suffered a near-death beating at the hands of police in 1991. The taxi driver, who was found dead at the bottom of his pool in 2012, will be immortalised in a project that seeks to tell the story of his life.
Spike Lee’s next movie will also focus on King and how he became an important figure against black injustice and racial profiling in the United States.