South Africa: Trainspotter - About Time - the ANC's Fight to the Death Is Finally Upon Us

analysis

One hundred and six years of history have nudged the African National Congress towards this moment, their very own Battle of Helm's Deep, where all of the organisation's internal contradictions - to say nothing of the terrible legacy of South Africa itself - will play out over the course of five long days (if we're lucky). South Africans have been in the midst of this war for so long that perspective is nearly impossible - the ruckus has stolen our brains. At the core of this melee is the Congress's failure to construct a cohesive, comprehensive nation out of the ruins of apartheid. And in the middle of the molten jumble, we find Jacob Zuma, post-apartheid South Africa's emblematic figure. (You thought that was Nelson Mandela? Nah.) What happens to Zuma and his faction this weekend determines not just the future of the party, but of the country. By RICHARD POPLAK.

'[T]o the thought control tower: please let me out. I'm trapped inside your head'

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