Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Perhaps one could also assume that the debate on affirmative action and employment equity inside the DA has now been resolved. When a black politician from outside the DA is promoted over the heads of the party’s leader, the party chairman and the parliamentary leader, we are witnessing the application of affirmative action with a vengeance. What recommends Ms Ramphele above all else is her contribution to the liberation struggle. With the exception of Joe Seremane, none of the DA’s long-standing black members made any such contribution. – Pallo Jordan in Business Day
