Trade unions and political parties held mass gatherings on Friday to mark Workers’ Day.
Hogarth paid special attention to the Cosatu national rally, as he wanted to see how ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and SACP boss Solly Mapaila relate to each other now that the communists are implementing their threat of going it alone.
But alas, neither man was there, and the event had to make do with Cosatu’s Zingiswa Losi as keynote speaker. Her speech was decent enough — until she counted the very liberal Helen Suzman as being among the anti-apartheid leaders who helped to forge close relations between the SACP and the ANC.
Suzman may have been white and a serious opponent of the apartheid state, but counting her among the communists is a stretch — even by Cosatu’s standards.
Off with his head
As a staunch republican, Hogarth isn’t too crazy about aristocrats. But when a real king teaches a wannabe dictator a lesson or two about the workings of democracy, Hogarth has to give him his due.
King Charles III was in the US this week for an official visit to the crumbling empire and former British colony. Addressing congress, the king reminded Americans that executive power is “subject to checks and balances”.
You must be really bad as president of the world’s “greatest democracy” when even a hereditary monarch sees the need to lecture you on democracy.
Why he wants an Arc de Trumphe
Ever so polite, King Charles couldn’t resist responding to some of the controversial statements made by the Orange One on his recent trip to Europe. Back then, Donald Trump told European leaders that were it not for the US, they would all be speaking German now as they would have lost to Adolf Hitler in World War 2.
The king, referencing history, told the Americans that were it not for British colonialism, they would all be speaking French today.
Next, Zuma as a refugee in Texas
Back home, the Nkandla Crooner held his first public meeting with AfriForum leader Kallie Kriel this week. The meeting has confused a lot of Jacob Zuma’s supporters who had drunk the Kool-Aid about him being a modern-day Robert Sobukwe who has no time for right-wingers.
Hogarth thinks they should not be surprised; after all, when Trump was re-elected US president, only AfriForum and Zuma’s MK Party issued statements that sought to portray the re-election as a positive development.
Welcome to Stalingrad
By Hogarth’s reckoning, Brown Mogotsi, the self-declared police spy and businessman, has not been sitting on his hands while the wheels of the Madlanga commission grind on. One actor on the commission that Mogotsi has taken a keen interest in — and developed an aversion to — is the scalpel-sharp evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson.
So this week, when it was time for him to return to the witness stand and be cross-examined, Mogotsi asked for Chaskalson’s recusal. Perhaps taking a leaf from the Jacob Zuma playbook on how to eternally postpone the moment of truth?
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