Thomas Johnson - The Blog

  I've questioned UCT law analyst Pierre de Vos’ agenda and thus his legal opinions since his defence of UCT's revocation of Flemming Rose's open lecture in 2016 (see here ). While he agreed the disinvite was "deplorable" and there was no basis for it – it was in fact a banning of free speech which is contrary to South Africa's constitution and all a university stands for – he still found it tenable for irrational reasons. It's significant the Muslim community, on whose behalf he, Max Price et al took offense, believed the lecture ought to have proceeded .   De Vos, like most of the soft liberal-left including intellectuals and those who write for Daily Maverick, is guided by a strangling political correctness and paternalism – an ideological belief really – only they have the currency for what is and isn't acceptable.  His opinion today in Daily Maverick about the KwaZulu-Natal High Court’s call to pray ruling is another.    As an analysis...

 People are surprised by the ANC government’s corruption in the coronavirus personal protection equipment (PPE) contracts. It’s apparently unbelievable because it was not supposed to happen under alleged corruption-fighting President Cyril Ramphosa.    Recently DA leader Helen Zille wrote of the  “ criminal state ”. Although she referred to the ANC, she’s correct corruption is an integral part of South African governance and state. It’s part of government officials’ culture and moral and ethical make-up whether they’re ANC or DA.    But despite her criticism of the ANC, she personally, DA and Western Cape government are no exception. As premier she was a party to regulatory capture. In another instance she pre-emptively defended WC Health Department officials including appointee Dr Beth Engelbrecht against alleged violations of national and provincial laws. She refused to investigate.   In latest examples of Western Cape government malfeasance, c...

This is a continuation of my occasional review of South African media.  MyBroadband is a site that focuses on IT and technology. It started as a discussion forum but later included news and information (this review is not about the forum, though). It's sister site is BusinessTech. It mostly posts informational reviews and articles on IT but more general interest matters too, e.g. the pandemic and economy/business. Its content, about half of which are advertorials, or "partner content", is a combination of news, information and opinion. The problem, like South African media in general, is it frequently breaches the inviolable wall between news/information and opinion.  At times MyBroadband presents false, inaccurate or tendentious information to deliberately promote a view or interest, or by accident and sloppy journalism - ignorance of the topic, little to no research or fact-checking, lack of objectivity and balance and appeal to authority - that is another feature of So...

Helen Zille is back on Daily Maverick with an article (a column?) about South Africa's "criminal state" , i.e. ANC.  When she had her From the Inside column she was untouchable. Ever politically correct, DM didn't like criticism of her (the media is funny that way even when they're frequently wrong as DM's writers often are). After she left, she was fair game for their writers. In an indirect snub to DM, she said Politicsweb's and Rapport's editors are the only two "worthwhile" political analysts in the country, Now she's back with DM and all is forgiven. It's moot, though, because from last week I no longer read DM, and for a long time have had no time for her. Funny it took the media including Max Du Preez - her erstwhile supporters - so long to find out what kind of person she is.  Conservationist and whistleblower Bool Smuts and I called her out years ago when the Western Cape Government committed regulatory capture with her knowl...

The South African media and its political "analysts" are outraged by the ANC government's latest example of corruption - personal protective equipment (PPE). This was not supposed to happen again especially after their man, Cyril Ramaphosa, was appointed on the ticket of anti-corruption and as a corruption fighter. And it happened under his nose including among his personal staff. As Ramaphorias, i.e. supporters of Ramaphosa, they ignored that while in Zuma's cabinet he facilitated Zuma's and ANC's corruption by going along to get along and being party to it. (It's significant the Zondo Commission won't investigate his role.) Despite him being an absent president and an imposter and there being evidence he will not measurably change the country's fortunes even if he could (he's waiting to settle in, they said), they cheered him, ignoring his blatant, serial failures. As the country's economic situation worsened and sunk into the inevitable ...

UCT researcher Dr Rob Simmons' and colleagues' vendetta against cats and their households got personal. In response I challenged them to either lay charges against us for having nine cats that he alleges kill over 800 prey a year, or shut up after he made the false statement in Daily Maverick yesterday. Following Daily Maverick's sensationalising Simmons' and others' paper in Global Ecology and Conservation about cats allegedly "slaughtering" 200 000 wildlife on Table Mountain National Park and my emailed response , which DM didn't publish (no right of reply), he told Tiara Walters: "The City of Cape Town could reduce the present limit of four cats per household to two or even one. We learned of a person who has nine cats in their house ." "He said, it translated into a possible fatality rate of over 800 prey per year from one household alone " (emphasis added). He was referring to me because I wrote to him and DM that we had nine ...

In Daily Maverick Tiara Walters writes a follow-up to her article last week (see here ) about the alleged large numbers of wildlife cats are "slaughtering" on Table Mountain National Park. In her article today she mentions people's response including on Facebook, some disagreeing, and reports Dr Robert Simmons alluding to something I said (see below).  I replied to DM and UCT researcher Simmons, who co-authored the Global Ecology   and Conservation paper on which Walters' article was based. But  my letter was neither published (right of reply) nor was I referred to by name in the follow-up article as other people were.  Daily Maverick claims they publish right of replies and readers' letters but they don't, not mine anyway and not to the  first article [1]. Perhaps it's because at times I've complained about poor journalism, as Janet Heard knows. Like Walters' first article when she breached the Chinese Wall between news reporting and opinion.  ...