This is not about Jacob Zuma's sex life

On Monday tens of thousands of young South Africans marched in Cape Town, South Africa, to demand access to a quality education; that is for “… stocked libraries, running water, electrical connections, sports facilities, computer centres and sanitary toilets.  In other words, all the infrastructural facilities that students need in order to learn and thrive.” For a sense of the appalling conditions under which the majority of mostly black elementary and high schoolers learn in South Africa, see here.  The organizers were profiled by The New York Times a while back. The media there and here–with a few exceptions–chose to either ignore or downplay the march’s significance because it was not about the buffoonish Julius Malema, Kenny Kunene, Jacob Zuma’s sex life or his children’s business dealings, the media statements of the ANC Youth League, and no damage to public or private property was reported.

More here and here.

Further Reading

Empire’s middlemen

From Portuguese Goa to colonial Kampala, Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book shows how India became an instrument of empire, and a scapegoat in its aftermath.

À qui s’adresse la CAN ?

Entre le coût du transport aérien, les régimes de visas, la culture télévisuelle et l’exclusion de classe, le problème de l’affluence à la CAN est structurel — et non le signe d’un manque de passion des supporters.

Lions in the rain

The 2025 AFCON final between Senegal and Morocco was a dramatic spectacle that tested the limits of the match and the crowd, until a defining moment held everything together.