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Ann Eveleth asks if South Africa is in danger of losing its political discourse to a 'spectacle of the commentator'.

Good work Leslie! I look forward to reading the book when it becomes available here. Since returning to the belly of the beast recently after 14 years in SA, and especially after my experiences with the misadventures of certain intellectuals in the social movements there, I have been struggling to imagine how our generation can ever actually change anything, given the predominance of so many ‘celebrity intellectuals’, etc among the so-called ‘new’ social movements of our era.

It has often seemed to me that so much of the debate around the 'role of the intellectual' in SA, while stepping off from a correct concern around the 'anti-intellectualism' of many leading political actors and institutions (including the media), tends to dissolve into a highly self-referential project that ends up negating what is most valuable about the true intellectual, in the sense that Said refers to it. I think there is a huge crossover too between most of the 'celebrity intellectuals' and 'commercial intellectuals', and perhaps many more combinations of ways that the various charlatans pervert the role of intellectuals.

For me, the lack of engagement with some of Cabral's work, especially the question of 'class suicide', lies at the heart of the problem. There is much more to say about the issues raised by this excerpt, but for now I will just express my gratitude at this new contribution to what has become an often tired debate in the SA context.

Considering these questions at this time from a different location, I often wonder if SA is not in danger of losing its political discourse to an Amerikkkan-style 'spectacle of the commentator'.