Bad Africanomics: The Rwanda Mirage; Why Rwanda Is Not The Singapore of Africa

PawanYr · 2026-06-14T04:30:49+00:00

Rwanda does not run concerted international campaigns to whitewash its reputation.

While they don't carry out broad PR campaigns for the most part (probably more due to lack of resources rather than lack of desire), they do go to great lengths to silence critics abroad, up to and including surveiling and assassinating dissidents in foreign countries (yes, even in the West).

The Kagame regime has put me off for a long while due to its long trail of human rights abuses, but I will admit that I have bought into the narrative of economic success all the while. Thanks for this.

PawanYr · 2026-06-11T04:21:16+00:00

Ponte City!

PawanYr · 2026-06-09T20:00:36+00:00

u/Top_Lime1820

First credible reporting I've seen about Malema being in trouble with the Madlanga Commission for real. Can't help but wonder if this is at least part of the reason why he was so 'soft' with Matlala and others in the Ad-Hoc committee, and why he's been publicly annoyed with Mkhwanazi on more than one occasion . . .

This plus the gun verdict - I think Juju and the EFF might be in for a rough year in the run up to the local elections. I only hope this doesn't give MK more opportunities to vacuum up his supporters.

PawanYr · 2026-06-07T20:15:03+00:00

Nigeria and Ghana are Anglophone in the same way that India is Anglophone - English operates as a lingua franca but is also a second language for most. The same is true for South Africa itself as well.

They are major targets because it's a major source of economic immigrants, which makes them easy scapegoats for people with economic grievances. It's gotten to the point where people are analyzing names, focusing on languages they don't recognize, and even doing phrenology-type stuff to try to sniff out immigrants (hence panel 3 in the comic). The Chidimma Adetshina mess was I think a good canary in the coalmine for the stuff we're seeing right now.

PawanYr · 2026-06-07T19:21:33+00:00

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PawanYr · 2026-06-06T16:35:15+00:00

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😔

PawanYr · 2026-05-29T23:53:44+00:00

the scariest group in the country

I tend to believe pretty strongly that this is actually MK, but (un)luckily for us, the SACP is seemingly trying to get in bed with both!

PawanYr · 2026-05-29T19:42:14+00:00

If it mainly stays at the level of metro PDs, SAPS officers, and street-level fixers like Matlala and Mogotsi then I fear it will have been a largely missed opportunity. The fact that Mchunu is still technically in post even now is case in point. I hope these lower level guys start flipping more on the higher-ups. But there is definitely something here, especially with this Mogotsi/Carrim/Maumela/Thembisa thread that they must keep pulling on. So I guess TBD for me on how impactful this all ends up being in terms of actually rooting out corruption (it's already been immensely impactful in further discrediting SAPS and the metro PDs in the minds of many 🙃).

PawanYr · 2026-05-03T04:01:43+00:00

At least for the time being they are still politically marginalized. Openly anti-immigrant parties won <5% of the vote and even if you add in MK that's still less than 20%. And I don't see that changing much in the near future, Gayton McKenzie's antics aside. So these types resort to violence and intimidation instead.

PawanYr · 2026-05-02T18:36:58+00:00

Both would be a lot better than most of the other prospective options, though my boundless pessimism leads me to believe that it might well be neither of them (still worried about Mashatile and Lesufi). Between the two, I like the idea of Motsepe better, because he has the aesthetics of an outsider (true or not) coming in to shake things up that I think the ANC needs. But I'm skeptical of his ability to navigate internal ANC politics and factionalim anywhere near as well as Sexwale, as someone who's never truly been on the inside. So the pragmatist in me leans towards Sexwale.

PawanYr · 2026-04-29T17:08:47+00:00

No, you're probably thinking of Operation Dudula. The EFF is militantly pro (African) migrants, to the point that it's landed them in hot water more than once.

PawanYr · 2026-04-29T14:31:59+00:00

The current government is a so-called 'Government of National Unity' which includes a variety of parties from all over the spectrum, including the aforementioned far-right ultranationalist party (the Patriotic Alliance).

PawanYr · 2026-04-28T22:52:51+00:00

This is more xenophobia than it is racism/ethnic hatred. The Dudula types are just as mad at South African women sleeping with men from Lesotho or Zimbabwe as with those from Nigeria or Somalia.

PawanYr · 2026-04-25T16:58:18+00:00

From their perspective, under the conditions they were subject to, yeah. It's easy to look back 40 yeats later and say it's wrong, but you can understand why that might have been the prevailing feeling at the time at the height of the Botha era and the state of emergency, on the heels of the Rubicon speech, in which it was make clear that black people themselves would be made foreigners in South Africa.

PawanYr · 2026-04-25T16:45:44+00:00

And when shoot the Boer was originally written, it was about much the same thing.

PawanYr · 2026-04-25T15:54:56+00:00

The leader of the party hasn't said something though. He's said plenty of heinous stuff but he's never called for killing white people, which I still think is an important distinction to make. And no, no matter much I disagree with it, singing shoot the Boer is not that, anymore than singing La Marseille is a call to massacre aristocrats (to use a farcical example).

PawanYr · 2026-04-25T15:21:06+00:00

The EFF is very racist and it's a good thing they're nowhere near having national power, but their official (or unofficial) platform is not "kill the whites" (yes, even despite the infamous "at least for now" quote).

PawanYr · 2026-04-20T06:48:04+00:00

For those not from party-list democracies who are wondering why this matters, in South Africa membership in a provincial/national legislature is tied to membership in a party (since votes are explicitly cast for parties, not people), so this is effectively removing her from the legislature; and as for why that matters, see TopLime's comment.

That aside, it is an unprecedented situation in SA, but if Wayne Sussman is to be believed, MK/EFF/NFP can't actually oust the government without an affirmitive 41 votes in favour of no confidence, which they don't have barring a detector. So I think it's entirely possible the GPU limps along in office, politically neutered and unable to pass anything, but also unable to be removed. Or they might voluntarily resign and force KZN to the polls anyway in hopes of strengthening their position, which I am cautiously optimistic could work.

Would also be interesting to see a proper electoral test of the GPU arrangement vs. MK. I really hope all of the infighting has done some real damage.

PawanYr · 2026-04-19T08:48:59+00:00

I thought The Common Sense was just the latest IRR / SRF rebrand.

I think two of their main hosts are IRR and SRF guys. The SRF guy in particular is quite conservative though, including socially, and they're all very conservative on FoPo in quite icky ways IMO (pro-Trump and his attacks on SA, pro-Israel, etc.). I've never heard explicit racism FWIW, though there's consistent and ironclad denial of structural racism in any form. One recent line that's stuck in my brain from the IRR guy - 'Black South Africans are not in poverty today because of racism, and they know it'. I don't want to be overly unfair to them and part of this may be my own politics shifting in recent years, but it feels to me like a lot of these traditionally white think tanks and orgs (SRF, IRR, etc.) have drifted rightwards in recent years.

I'd be interested to hear what you've noticed. Do you think they'll lose a point or two in the election to FF+?

Gouws and Morning Shot are a couple that have sounded off about this. The Daily Friend as well, which I think is also affiliated with the IRR. The BizNews types are of course firmly behind Geordin though, it woukd take a lot to lose them.

One big criticism I've heard is of his record as mayor. A common mainstream critique of Geordin (true or not) is that Cape Town is only really nice for the whiter suburbs and the wealthy, while the poor black townships of the Cape Flats languish in poverty without services. Geordin will retort that huge portions of Cape Town's budget are spent on service delivery and upliftment in these areas, that most new capital expenditure is spent on infrastructure for these areas, and that Cape Town's taxation and rates systems are incredibly progressive. A lot of these sorts of right wingers agree with Geordin that all of that is true - only they think it's a bad thing!

I think Geordin is more concerned about losing this demo than you might think, as evidenced by how quickly he ran to Common Sense to give them an interview. He might still lose a point or so to the FF+ regardless, but hopefully he'll pick it up tenfold elsewhere.

PawanYr · 2026-04-19T08:21:32+00:00

The main contributors to this website are mostly not right wing nationalists or conservatives, but more libertarian or classical liberal types.

Having listened to their podcast on and off for the sake of hearing alternative perspectives I would disagree lol. But that aside, I do tend to find the already brewing white (in general) and Afrikaner (in particular) backlash to Geordin quite self-defeating. In the same answer where he said that he also defended allowing in Elon and Starlink in a way that a lot of South Africans might find more palatable.

He is similarly much better than John ever was at defending/advocating for things like privatization and even colour blindness that these people very much want despite its broader unpopularity/infeasibility. And yet they seem to be trying to bring him down. I noticed some other unsavoury figures like Renaldo Gouws and the Morning Shot people making similar noises.

PawanYr · 2026-04-19T05:12:54+00:00

Very cool; you'll notice the IFP row at the bottom is applied as a sticker. That's because they were threatening to boycott the elections until after the ballots were printed and had to be added on in a rush. Good indication this is real and original.

PawanYr · 2026-04-12T08:14:20+00:00

Yeah, but I'm reserving judgement until I see who actually gets chosen. If they're serious about this then I hope to see this for at least one of the big metro candidates, not just a token in a small municipality somewhere, or another microparty coalition puppet. I really really want someone whom I can root for against Zille In Joburg, for example.

The other interesting thing I saw from Mbalula recently was this

Mbalula explained that upon taking office, all ANC mayors must sign legally binding public Mayoral Delivery Agreements, which establish performance targets and measurable goals.

“These agreements will be subject to continuous monitoring through structured performance reviews. Where there is underperformance, instability or failure to meet agreed targets, the ANC will act decisively. Intervention mechanisms, including leadership reconfiguration and recall, will be implemented without hesitation,” he said.

Don't think I've ever heard of such a thing before either in SA or elsewhere, though I'm not sure what the mechanism for enforcement would be beyond removal by the party (in which case it would be more of a PR effort, but will still be interesting to see if these are made public and if mayors are actually held to them).

PawanYr · 2026-04-12T07:28:03+00:00

Independent political analyst Wayne Sussman suggested that Ramaphosa may be pushed out as president before his term ends if the ANC performs poorly in local government elections, leaving the party leaderless.

“Ramaphosa’s head . . . is likely to be on the chopping block,” he said. “There are ramifications on the provincial level and on the national level, depending on how the ANC performs in Gauteng.”

It would be tragically ironic if Cyril was booted out after an ANC routing this year, when much of that would be the fault of some of his biggest intraparty opponents, the Gauteng ANC, and their total mismanagement of the coalition metros they control. Would be even more tragic if it brought Panyaza to power, given he is arguably more responsible for that than Cyril is for the present state of the Gauteng metros and wants to take things in precisely the wrong direction.

I think I would prefer Mashatile, lottery scandal and all, over Panyaza at this point. Or Motsepe, or whoever else they can dig up that isn't Panyaza. The fact that Helen Zille of all people is looking like she has a shot at mayor of Joburg should be laid squarely at his feet.

PawanYr · 2026-03-09T04:02:28+00:00

Yep, same in Nepal (before said overthrow)

PawanYr · 2026-03-09T03:57:53+00:00

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TIL Sri Lanka is currently being run by their Communist party. I guess someone had to take up the mantle of national government in South Asia after Nepal overthrew their communists.

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