In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser

Author and journalist Jacques Pauw joined me to discuss his new book, Our Poisoned Land. It is a sequel to his previous bestseller, The President's Keepers.

It was a wide-ranging but also focused conversation that could have been longer. I want you to read the book before we debate it further. This interview won't spoil your reading experience. It gives you a sense of what the book is about. 

Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions I explored with Pauw: Is the much discussed excerpt about the EFF a distraction from the main issues in the book or a fair reflection of his intentions as author? How does he respond to critics who think that unethical journalism, related to an incident at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, undermines his journalistic integrity and credibility? What are examples of the linkages between money, politics, and the subversion of the constitution? Why is PRASA such a big focus of the book? What are the implications of the empirical evidence of state capture specifically for the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa? Is the EFF a bona fide political party or a criminal enterprise? Etc.

Enjoy!

 

I will soon interview Jacques  Pauw about Our Poisoned Land, his sequel to The President's Keepers, one of the most commercially successful books in South Africa over the past ten years, quite apart from the phenomenal discursive impact it had.

Here's a reminder, from the archives, of the key themes in The President's Keepers. I had, back then, interviewed Jacques Pauw as that book was causing massive public debate. 

Enjoy

Many of you write to me privately, asking for informal advice on quitting alcohol or cutting back massively.

I've not consumed alcoholic beverages for more than three years now.

Along the way, I have learned many things. Whether you are an alcoholic, or simply curious about sobriety, or maybe just keen to drink much less, this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, which is my story about accidentally quitting alcohol, will be of some use to you.

Enjoy, and all the best.

In this epsiode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser I explain my support for the decriminalisation of sex work.

[FROM THE ARCHIVES] I flighted a documentary about the work of an organisation in inner city Johannesburg aimed at changing the lives of boys and girls who have offended and who are at risk of offending by using boxing as a way to help them recover their own humanity and to fulfill their human potential.

What an incredible experience.

I shared with them my own journey too... this was a very emotional rollercoaster for my team. 

Listen and share this one widely too. 

I cannot even believe I typed that question because it should be regarded as totally absurd. Right? But sadly there are still people who walk around imagining that heteronormativity is intrinsic to being African. Bizarre. 

Well, about ten years ago I took part in what was a difficult but productive debate about this question hosted by Zeinab Badawi.

It featured politicians and various activists. I too was one of the panel members. 

I thought it would be useful to re-broadcast that debate so we continue the critical engagement about sex, gender and queer politics

I interviewed banker Lincoln Mali about his book, Blazing A Trail: Lessons For African Leadership. 

Mali has spent over two decades in banking and financial services working across the continent, from Nigeria to Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya and elsewhere, as a banking executive facing a myriad of leadership challenges entrusted to him by his mentors and bosses.

This comes after a stint in government, a more natural home for a student political activist who had studied law at Rhodes University. 

In this interview we introduce you to some of the main themes and inisghts of the book, and Mali the author. In one sense, his approach to business leadership is intuitively sensible, and yet it isn't orthodoxy in a world of work in which patriachal norms and hypermasculinity frames our ideas of 'good leadership', still.

Do buy and read a copy! In the meantime, enjoy this interview

#ForTheLoveOfBooks #ForTheLoveOfReading

Kukhokuhle Tswenga is a brilliant doctoral engineering student at Oxford University with a research interest in robotics. His life began in deep rural Eastern Cape, a poorly resourced community that did not stop his academic brilliance from manifesting , early on. He even, uhm, got 100% for both maths and science in matric, one of the top students in the country. 

In this beautiful podcast conversation, he allowed me to share parts of his amazing and inspirational story with you. It is so stunning on so many levels - intellectually, politically and otherwise - that I am gonna ask you to simply listen. Just like the story of Professor Musa Manzi went viral, so too will you be moved and inspired by Kuhle'.s

Share it widely. 

Dig in!

I interviewed Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon about his stunning book, The Blinded City- Ten Years In Inner-City Johannesburg, which tells countless and complex sets of stories about people who occupy buildings in inner-city Johannesburg.

Some call these bulldings "hijacked buildings" but Matthew explains why this term is problematic. He has spent over ten years getting to know the people living in these buildings, recording their stories, following lawfare between these communities, property developers and the City of Johannesburg.

What emerges is an incredible book that isn't just about an ongoing housing crisis, but a struggle for the right of people who live precariously to be treated with dignity, an inviolable right that they are inherently entitled to but all too often denied.

No one with a serious interest in making sense of the urban landscape, and our myriad political  fissures, can skip this conversation. Listen to it, and buy Matthew's book.

This is a story about Johannesburg, in the first instance, but one with global echoes and therefore of international interest also.

Enjoy

In this edition of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I voice an essay I had written for TimesLIVE in which I critique the bullshit idea that race-based affirmative action policies are racist, and also slay the myth of meritocracy that make many white people falsely claim that their economic successes are due to hard work and fair play.

There is a cluster of explicit and hidden premises in these positions that are popular despite being spectacularly false and fallacious. 

Have a listen.