Fikile Ntsikelelo Moya

The prospects of a rapport between President Thabo Mbeki and the new opposition leader, Helen Zille, should be much better than they were in Tony Leon’s time. Both appear to be deniers of major ills that afflict our society. Mbeki’s denialism, on HIV/Aids, crime, unemployment, Zimbabwe and arms deal corruption, is well known, writes Fikile Moya.

It was in the same week that my daughter’s preschool teacher suggested that we speak English to her at home that I met Ntate Koneshe and asked him how he was. He responded in Sesotho, as he always does, that "<i>mathatha antse a lekane matsoho</i>" — the problems are as big as our hands, to give it a rough English translation, writes Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.

"We have thought enough. It is time for sloganeering." Is this the key message of once-proud Marxists within what once called itself the progressive youth movement? At the end of 2006 the Young Communist League expelled its deputy, Mazibuko Jara, while the African National Congress Youth League disbanded its Eastern Cape provincial structures.

French author and philosopher Albert Camus said: "All that I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football." I too owe everything I know about life, love and loyalty, pleasure and pain to having been a football fan. Everything I know about the inevitable turmoil that, from time to time, visits human life; and the powers and the possibilities of the human spirit that help overcome such times, I owe to having supported Orlando Pirates.

Until two weeks ago, Tom Thabane was Lesotho’s minister of communication. Except for a three-year stint when he was living in South Africa, Thabane has served in every post-independence Lesotho government, either as a senior public official or as a Cabinet minister. Thabane had been seen as the heir apparent to Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, but was sidelined in a recent Cabinet reshuffle.

The Jali commission of inquiry has slammed the inordinate power it says is exercised by the Cosatu prisons affiliate Popcru in the administration of prisons. The full executive summary of the findings of former judge Thabani Jali was released by the correctional services department this week after a storm of protest over the sanitised version handed to Parliament recently.

From someone recently elected president, I expected some airs. But Jimmy Manyi, the new Black Management Forum, president lacks them. I am taken aback that he, instead of a personal assistant, comes to the reception to welcome us and usher us to his office. He says something self-effacing. I say something else he finds funny. He bursts into a booming laughter.

The Constitutional Court had missed an opportunity to demonstrate that it wants the public to have greater awareness of justice at work by refusing the SABC the right to broadcast the Schabir Shaik appeal case, the broadcaster’s attorney said on Thursday.

The government and civil society organisations in Mozambique have come together to attempt to push back poverty caused by 15 years of post-colonial-rule civil war. Civil society has formed itself into what it calls the G20, a group of (initially 20 but now more) diverse organisations.

Media freedom and anti-censorship bodies have won the first battle against a Bill to force pre-publication submission of newspaper articles. Cabinet recently instructed the Department of Home Affairs to get the views of media practitioners and other interested parties before making the Film and Publications Amendment Bill into law.

Michael MacDonald, professor of political science at Williams College in the United States, was in South Africa recently to launch his book <i>Why Race Matters in South Africa</i>. He talked to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.

The black-gold bold letters with telephone numbers announcing who to call if you need armed response to a crime look a bit out of place on a White City, Soweto, street. White City is traditionally one of the roughest Soweto townships and also its poorest.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula came to rare prominence two weeks ago when he controversially suggested persistent whingers about crime should leave the country. <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reporter Fikile Ntsikelelo Moya quizzed the largely invisible minister on his statement, and on crime and policing more generally.

Academic and political commentator Sipho Seepe says he used to carry his kid brother, Jimmy, to kindergarten. This weekend, he will carry his coffin. Jimmy, <i>City Press</i>’s highly regarded political editor, died this week of a stroke at the relatively tender age of 41.

Jacob Zuma this week sent out the message that the politico-legal drama playing itself out in the Johannesburg High Court was not the personal confrontation onlookers might have mistaken it for. Ever the politican, Zuma, wearing a stylish black chalk-striped suit, started Tuesday morning by shaking hands with the prosecutors and the policemen who arrested him.

The Jacob Zuma trial, which has topped the national agenda since March 6, is set for its denouement. A lot is at stake: the next president, the battle against HIV and Aids, the role of women in society … With not only matters of state but also of life and death at stake, it’s no wonder then that the former deputy president’s supporters have since the beginning of the trial sought the intercession of the ancestors and God to help their man.

This week, Jacob Zuma delivered his testimony in Zulu. It was the type of language that would have had him laughed at by the KwaMashu youth. Having being declared by his foes according to the disputed hoax e-mails to be "the Zulu boy", but embraced by his supporters as "100% Zuluboy", Zuma has gone back to his KwaNxamalala village roots.

"When I told colleagues that, if I were ever charged with rape, I would love to have Jacob Zuma’s advocate, Kemp J Kemp, as my lawyer, I was met with derisory comments. I want to believe that my colleagues think of me as upright enough never to have to defend myself against such a heinous crime," writes Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.

Jacob Zuma has learnt that, as in politics, a week can be a very long time when in the dock charged with rape. By the end of last week, Zuma’s defence team was so pleased with themselves that they were contemplating asking the judge to throw the matter out. By Thursday, the pendulum had swung.

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Jacob Zuma’s lawyers spent much of Thursday trying to establish that Zuma’s accuser is a serial rape complainant who has levelled numerous groundless accusations against men in the past. And after four days of testimony, his lawyers told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> they might be able to apply for the dismissal of the rape charge against Zuma as soon as his accuser has finished giving evidence.

A KwaZulu-Natal judge has hit back at Justice Director General Menzi Simelane over the latter’s insinuation that judges involve themselves in areas outside their expertise at the expense of the government. "I am not going to mention names, but we had a judge who contracted a company to fix air conditioning," Simelane told the <i>M&G</i>.

The moon is full and the sky is cloudless. The music — between smooth jazz and contemporary adult — plays subtly in the background, not disturbing conversations. At the door, bouncers in dark suits ensure that those wearing takkies and those who can’t prove they are older than 25 are not allowed in.