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
What President Zuma told Parliament about the Nkandla “enhancements”
Today the Mail & Guardian published details of what it claims is the provisional Report of the Public Protector on the spending of more than R200 million of public funds on President Jacob Zuma’s private home at Nkandla. One of the most shocking and scandalous aspects of this report is that the Public Protectors draft report allegedly found that President Zuma lied to Parliament (and hence to the nation) about the use of public funds for his personal enrichment.
The newspaper claims that the provisional report finds that President Jacob Zuma has derived “substantial” personal benefit from works that exceeded security needs at his Nkandla homestead and must repay the state, public protector Thuli Madonsela has provisionally found: a swimming pool, visitors’ centre, amphitheatre, cattle kraal, marquee area, extensive paving and new houses for relocated relatives were all improperly included in the security upgrade at “enormous cost” to the taxpayer, Madonsela is alleged to have found.
Here is the original speech made by President Zuma in the National Assembly in which he claimed the state only paid for security enhancements at Nkandla.
