The Spear – as I have written before – has become about far more than about whether a painting resembling President Jacob Zuma with his penis hanging out should be banned because it humiliates Zuma, his many wives and children as well as affronts the dignity of all...
democratic
The Spear | by Steven Robbins
BRETT Murray’s The Spear has generated an extraordinary amount of media and political commentary, social media twittering, marches and protests, including the defacing of the painting itself. The rage expressed by many in response to the depiction of the private parts...
The Spear that divided the nation | by Professor Robins
BRETT Murray’s The Spear has generated an extraordinary amount of media and political commentary, social media twittering, marches and protests, including the defacing of the painting itself. The rage expressed by many in response to the depiction of the private parts...
Unpacking the legal arguments in The Spear case | by Pierre De Vos
The presentation of the legal arguments about whether a final interdict should be granted against the Goodman Gallery and City Press to cease publication (on their websites) of a work of art, depicting someone who looks like President Jacob Zuma with his private parts...
We are all racists | by Nhlanhla Mtaka
Nhlanhla Mtaka says the Spear controversy has unmasked us as a nation From tolerance to acceptance: The controversy over the Zuma painting has revealed us all to be racists In his book The Other Side of History: An Anecdotal Reflection on Political Transition in South...
Political Crisis, the Left and the Possibility of a New Historical Bloc | by Panagiotis Sotiris
The combination of economic crisis, social devastation and open political crisis in ‘weak links’ of the European Project such as Greece has raised the possibility of social and political change. In Greece we have witnessed a sequence of social and political...
The Occupy movement and class politics in the US | by Megan Trudell
The Occupy movement that began in New York in September 2011 and has spread with remarkable speed across the country represents a massive shift in the politics of the United States.1 A year ago the seemingly inexorable rise of the Tea Party saw the startling...
Return of the one-state solution | by Phil Gasper
The case for a single democratic secular state in historic Palestine. ISRAEL’S BRUTAL rampage in the Gaza Strip in December and January claimed the lives of more than 1,300 Palestinians, the majority of them unarmed civilians according to the Israeli human rights...
Economic crisis and class struggle | by Phil Gasper
Are recessions better for the left or right, asks Phil Gasper? The most fundamental argument in favor of socialism is that capitalism is an irrational system that over the long term cannot meet the basic needs of the majority of the population because of its tendency...


