Cyril, we're waiting, plus five highlights from ‘Vrye Weekblad’
Here’s what’s hot in the latest edition of the Afrikaans digital weekly
Image: GCIS
What SA needs after a week of trauma and destruction, is a good cleanup of the state and drastic programmes to fight poverty.
Is our president able to pull that off? Does he have the courage and vision to take the necessary steps to fix people and property and to head into a new direction that would prevent a repeat of this week's chaos?
It is probably safe to say that if it weren't for the ANC's poor service delivery and corruption, the looting and plunder would have been confined, or perhaps would not have happened at all, writes Max du Preez in this week's edition of Vrye Weekblad.
We need to look back at this week and separate the pro-Zuma protests and the orchestrated efforts to weaken the state and the Ramaphosa government (or perhaps even to overthrow it) from the looting that was done by mostly the poor (and some genuine criminals).
The two streams do overlap in places: Police minister Bheki Cele said there is proof that the organisers of the economic sabotage paid and encouraged people to plunder and burn.
But then the looting started getting a life of its own. It no longer had anything to do with Zuma.
We are now dependent on Ramaphosa to take the country in a new direction. He has managed to get a few things done since becoming president, like cleaning up the NPA, SARS and SOEs, but his strategy has been to avoid conflict and tread carefully.
That is no longer an option.
* In his opinion piece about Deputy President David Mabuza two weeks ago, Piet Croucamp wrote that “Mabuza has in the past made regular visits to Russia for medical treatment. Most of them took place without anyone really knowing.” The deputy president has since brought it to our attention that he had in fact informed the president of all his trips to Russia.
We accept the deputy president's assurance.
Must-read articles in this week’s Vrye Weekblad
HEADS ROLL FOR NOTHING | The activities of our spies remain clear as mud. And the case of the SSA operatives who were “arrested” in Mozambique – which led to the suspension of Robert McBride – is another case where the truth is stranger than fiction.
SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER | Why did Jacob Zuma's lawyers run to the court in Pietermaritzburg to keep him out of jail after the Constitutional Court sent him there? Were they stupid, or were there ulterior motives?
GOING BACK | A journey to the past shows that our only comfort lies in the inevitability of our own mortality.
IS HOLLAND BECOMING A NARCO STATE? | Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries was shot in the head in broad daylight in a “safe” Amsterdam street last week. There are fears that the country could turn into a full-on narco state.
FREE TO READ – THE IVERMECTIN FIGHT CONTINUES | What is the role of the “intellectual dark web” in promoting ivermectin as a Covid cure, and why do more young people believe in it? This fight seems to be turning into a holy war.
