Modern…Opposition 

Every morning, your Eyewitness scours the news for reports – any mention!! – of the Opposition doing their opposing so he can give them a mention and be spared being drawn and quartered by some EU commission or other – for facilitating “incumbency advantage”!! God forbid!! So what was there in his (Tuesday) morning’s newsfeed as he pecks away at this piece?? Well, there was Sanction Man and Daddy visiting the GT Magistrate’s Court – to which they must’ve ambled over since it’s just a stone’s throw (your Eyewitness used to field on the boundary!!) from their offices where those tonnes of gold were smuggled… er… allegedly smuggled!!
Thing is, the smuggling matter ain’t going forward, as Magistrate Judy – our version of “Judge Judy” – seems to be stuck at what your Eyewitness understands – from voraciously devouring police crime shows – to be the “discovery” stage. This is where the prosecution gotta show all the evidence it has against the defendant – here Sanction Man and Daddy – so their lawyers aren’t ambushed during the trial!! Excepting that here, there ain’t gonna be no trial – and Magistrate Judy simply gotta decide whether the prosecution has an ARGUABLE case!!
So they gotta return on Friday, with some more evidence to be produced – which – this being an extradition case – evidently has to be “diplomatically” processed. Whatever that means!! It’s about as exciting as watching City Hall slowly – but inevitably! – revert to its dingy state!!  Sanction Man seems to’ve decided to do a “two-fer-one” by then ambling over from the Magistrate Court to lead some WIN supporters (they wore blue WIN T-shirts!!) in a protest in front of “Parliament” – he said!!  The protest was for him not being sworn in as the LOO – the “Leader of the Opposition” and not the place to take a leak. Problem was – it wasn’t the Parliament Buildings but the “Public Buildings” he marched in front of – in the hot sun!! It must’ve slipped his mind that he’d attended “Parliament” in that unpaid-duty Lambo on the East Coast at the Convention Center!!
There were no officials in the public buildings to witness the righteous indignation vociferously expressed stoutly by such supporters as his chief cook and bottle washer, Primus!! Your Eyewitness could only regret that Sanction Man and his Scrapehead battalion were Johnny-come-latelies to this political business. Otherwise he woulda known that a more effective protest had been conducted right there by Eusi Kwayana – the leader of another fringe party. He’d decided to fast to death. He might or might not have chained himself to the antique wrought iron fence around the public buildings!!
And what about the PNC junior opposition party?? They got a mention for demanding the national E-ID programme being rolled out should have parliamentary oversight.

…multilateralism
For small states – like us – to count in the modern state system, it’s essential that multilateral institutions like the UN, WTO, UNCCC’s COP, etc, formed after WWII – where we at least have a nominal vote – are maintained. Sadly, however, even the behemoths are increasingly being side-lined as the hegemonic US is challenged by China and the regional blocks it’s fostering.
The illusion China’s pushing is it won’t act like a hegemon and throw its weight around – like the US – in the new order. But that’s what all big powers say, don’t they?? They always push an ideal in which small states like us will support their “benevolent” formulations. The latest victim is G-20 – the 20 largest economies – which just concluded its summit in South Africa!!
With the US not attending – and proposing a junior embassy official be handed the protocols for the next year’s summit in Florida – SA President Ramaphosa closed the summit by banging a gavel!
Tit for tat – and small states become irrelevant!!

…international bargaining
Large nations used to push their self-interests under the cover of values like “democracy” that purported to assist the smaller nations. No more!! President Trump has removed this hypocrisy under the motto – Speak loudly and carry a big stick!!