The Guardian: South Africa has broken the post-colonial narrative. It’s a thrilling turning point

The country now enters a new era of competitive politics in a terrain where once the ANC’s struggle credentials ensured it unparalleled success. Malema, the energetic young founder of the EFF, has won 8% of the national vote and is a kingmaker in Johannesburg and Tshwane. Malema says he predicts the ANC will not be governing South Africa when the country takes to the polls in the 2019 national government elections. [...]

What does it mean? The post-colonial African story is replete with tales of liberation movements that have stayed in power with one leader and one party despite losing the support of the people. Zimbabwe, just to the north of us, is a painful example of such a country; Mugabe and Zanu-PF have been in power for 36 years.

South Africa has broken with that narrative. First, Zuma is the fourth president of the country since 1994. Mandela broke with the “strong man” tradition by stepping down after one term. Now, with these results, a future where South Africa could be run by an opposition party is beginning to emerge. We could see this in the next national election in 2019 or in 2024.

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The Atlantic: Why Are Some Conservative Thinkers Falling for Trump?

Instead, more than a year after Trump announced his presidential bid, his support among intellectuals has grown. Of course, many prominent conservatives—from George Will to William Kristol to David Brooks to Erick Erickson—oppose him militantly. But another cluster of writers and thinkers have declared themselves supportive of, or at least open to supporting, Trump. Among Trump’s critics, the predominant explanation for this openness is opportunism: Supporting the Republican nominee can have professional benefits. But a deeper dynamic is at work. It’s just hard to recognize, because American intellectuals haven’t felt the allure of authoritarian, illiberal politics this strongly in a long time. [...]

Read the intellectuals who are supporting Trump—or are open to supporting Trump—and you notice a few themes. First, they admire his campaign’s raw, unbridled energy. The Trump movement, according to the Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, radiates “dynamism.” His supporters “are just about the only cheerful people in politics … They’re having a good time.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an even more unabashed Trump booster, explains, “There is no model here … It is a Donald Trump unique, extraordinary experience. And you have to relax and take it for that kind of a unique experience.”

Next, pro-Trump intellectuals chastise political elites for disrespecting his exuberant, impassioned followers. “Those who oppose Mr. Trump should do it seriously and with respect for his supporters,” Noonan writes. “No one at this point needs your snotty potshots.” In fact, Trump’s intellectuals argue, elites have, due to their own incompetence and corruption, lost all grounds to lecture Trump supporters about individual rights and the rule of law. In his relationship to the Washington “establishmentarians,” says Gingrich, Trump is “like the boy who says the emperor has no clothing.” [...]

Why should we care about pseudonymous musings on a now-defunct website? Because the notion that Trump’s role as tribune of the people invests him with a kind of revolutionary authority over the institutions of the old order has echoes throughout pro-Trump commentary. In February, Noonan wrote, “There’s a kind of soft French Revolution going on in America, with the angry and blocked beginning to push hard against an oblivious elite.” In May, she wrote that Trump’s fans want him to be “a human bomb that will explode by timer under a bench in Lafayette Park and take out all the people but leave the monuments standing.” These are ghastly metaphors. Obviously, Noonan is not endorsing revolutionary violence. But she’s writing sympathetically about the people’s supposed desire for it. And she’s doing so on behalf of a candidate who incites actual violence.

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The Guardian: Facebook lures Africa with free internet - but what is the hidden cost?

Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions.

Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. [...]

It is not the first time Facebook has faced challenges to its initiative. In India, Free Basics was effectively banned after a groundswell of support for net neutrality – a principle affirming that what you look at, who you talk to and what you read is ultimately determined by you, not a business.

It was a blow for Zuckerberg, who was accused of acting like a digital colonialist: shouting about the right to the internet to mask true profit motives. [...]

In a competitive emerging market, giving away data for free may not seem like an obvious business choice, but Facebook has sold it to mobile operators on the basis that customers will eventually buy data.

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