South Africa’s policy impulses are deeply ideological and specifically historical, and its actions cannot be understood without reference to them. The Palestinian cause is a long-standing commitment that speaks to a geopolitical world-view.
Back in 2004, I recall watching an interview with a young woman at a protest against the war the US and its allies were waging against the insurgency in Iraq. ‘This is an incredibly brutal war,’ she said. I doubt I’ll ever forget that, both as a redundancy and a truism.
Sports-mad South Africa has a voracious appetite for news of all types about the affairs of its pitches, courts, and fields, and an emotional response to match. Where it intersects with another national fixation, politics, the intensity of feeling ramps up exponentially. To use a rather lame pun, sport is no game in this country.
While visiting King Misuzulu recently, EFF leader Julius Malema did SA a service by clarifying that expropriation without compensation and the associated idea of state custodianship championed by his party (and many within the governing ANC) would not affect land under the Ingonyama Trust.