Merc’s A45 S offers thrills and spills:
The hot-hatch segment has seen a significant decline over the years and to still have something like the formidable Mercedes-AMG A45 S devouring the streets, despite the electrification threat, is a wonder to behold.
And to think that the legacy that started in 2013 rests entirely on this car’s shoulders.
The first-generation model placed the A45 at the pinnacle of the greatest hot hatches. It competed with the likes of the BMW M135i (later renamed the M140i) and the excellent Audi RS3 Sportback during a time when 265kW and 450Nm from a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine were considered remarkable.
Merc’s A45 wasn’t just another hot hatch — it set emotions ablaze with its theatrics — yet it had its flaws, such as harsh ride quality and cramped rear seat space.
Mercedes-AMG aimed to right these wrongs, and it succeeded when it introduced the second-generation A45 in 2019.
For the 2023 model year, it has been given a mid-cycle refresh, including subtle exterior tweaks, but it still extracts colossal oomph from the M139 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo petrol powerplant, with the reworked driving dynamics.
Inside, the overall build quality is top-notch, complemented by a chunky multi-functional steering wheel, aluminium accents, sports seats and a digital dashboard. This is made up of two screens — 10 inch and 25 inch — with controls that are intuitive to use, thanks to the increased processing performance.
What about space, you ask? Well, the new A45 S hasn’t forfeited its practicality and it retains its generous interior proportions, ensuring ample room for all passengers. Furthermore, the capacious 370-litre boot space was able to gulp up our luggage and equipment with ease.
The A45 S is a comprehensively sorted compact hot hatch that still wields the same M139 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine as its predecessor. Power is still rated at 310kW and 500Nm, sent to all fours via a refined AMG 8-speed DCT plus a 4Matic+ system.
The A45 S executes its tasks with a level of finesse that is truly noteworthy and it’s that kind of car that compels drivers to at least try to unleash its full potential.
Unexpectedly, it emerged as a formidable contender among high-end supercars at this year’s Cannonball Run charity event in Joburg in August, demonstrating its exceptional agility and top-tier performance — attributes long associated with the world of hot hatches.
Yet, it’s not just about all-out speed. Dial it into the comfort mode and it transforms into a mild-mannered machine. Sure, the ride quality leans towards the firm side but that’s to be expected from a car of this calibre.
When it comes to handling the A45 S has a mind of its own, as experienced during our speed run in a controlled environment at the Cannonball Run.
An unexpected twist in the road caused a heart-in-mouth moment with the front tyres teetering on the fringes of grip. Thankfully, the brilliant 4Matic+ system and other typically over-intrusive safety systems intervened, correcting the course of the A45.
While it feels over-engineered on many fronts, it’s also a driver’s car, and you don’t have to go full throttle to enjoy it. For those who seek more, it responds with an immediacy we don’t often encounter with turbocharged cars and that nets it serious points in our book.
Priced at R1?397?793, the Mercedes-AMG A45 S isn’t anywhere close to being an affordable hot hatch, yet if you view it through the performance car lens you will understand what it’s all about. It comes with all the amenities of a modern-day Mercedes-Benz, and blistering performance to boot — and did I mention the soundtrack?
Before you commit to the A45 S, it would be wise to cast your gaze upon its formidable rivals. The VW Golf 8 R might be the least powerful of the bunch but it offers a fantastic drive while the Audi RS3 Sportback is a stunning combination of performance and elegance.
The new BMW M2, on the other hand, occupies a space not defined by hot-hatch norms and ups the ante with a rear-wheel configuration for enthusiastic driver enjoyment.
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Israel-Palestine: Empathy lies in the echoes of history:
The necessary condition for avoiding the recurrence of historical atrocities — although it is not sufficient on its own — is to recall them.
And the whole world is still vigilant about keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, lest we forget and conjure the evils of Nazism once again. But, are the signals from the Holocaust survivors compatible with this intention to obviate another crime against humanity?
An attempt to confront this question is an odyssey through a minefield of justifiably extreme sentiments. Considerable civility must be brought to bear. But reflections on the Holocaust and the post-war hunting of the Nazis are unavoidable.
To historicise contemporary problems sometimes involves the grim task of recalling tragedy. And although the words “Zionism” and “Nazism” do not belong in the same sentence, the parallels between them are present, and must be exposed.
On 11 May 1960, Adolf Eichmann was captured by Shin Bet and Mossad secret service agents. He was one of the most visceral embodiments of evil among the high-ranking masterminds of the Holocaust. The Shin Bet and Mossad agents smuggled him onto a flight to Tel Aviv, sedated and disguised as an intoxicated flight steward.
By all accounts, Eichmann was abducted, triggering an outcry that reverberated across the world. Israel had putatively transgressed international laws and undermined the sovereignty of Argentina.
The Israeli government’s justification can be summed up as the pursuit of justice, where “the ends justify the means”. The state of Israel, although non-existent during the Holocaust, deemed it proper to administer justice to Nazi war criminals — by any means they deemed necessary.
It can be inferred categorically that Israel subscribed to the notion of justice and the rule of law. And, therefore, without fear of contradiction (rational or not), it can be argued that Israel could not visit on the Palestinians what the Jews endured at the hands of Eichmann.
If the state of Israel were to dispute this logic, it could find itself in a predicament. First, judgment by history as bounty hunters who staged a Stalin-style show trial for Eichmann, the verdict of which was a forgone conclusion. Second, they could allow this logic to persuade them but risk losing ground (literally) in Palestine. But even if Israel capitulated, atonement would still require a mirror from the past.
And one of those is the story of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi whom Adolf Hitler lauded as “the man with an iron heart”. This was one of the many informal titles Heydrich earned for his merciless brutality towards the citizens of Nazi-occupied territories.
Hitler had appointed Heydrich as deputy governor of Czechoslovakia, which at the time was the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. As the deputy governor, Heydrich made it his priority to execute Czech resistance fighters and other “undesirables”. His ability to carry out the genocidal militarism of the Nazis in occupied territories was superlative — a diabolical talent that earned him the nicknames the Butcher of Prague and the Hangman of Prague.
On 27 May 1942, Heydrich was assassinated by members of the Czech resistance. The bestiality of the reprisals that followed is one of the most terrifying testimonials to Nazi evil.
To avenge his assassination, Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) to wipe the small village of Lidice off the face of the earth. Lidice was summarily obliterated, but not before the execution of all the men in the village.
Women and their children were sent to concentration camps in Poland, where they perished in gas chambers. And to add insult to the injury, the SS ploughed the earth for crops where Lidice once stood.
In 1948, barely six years after Lidice, Israel expelled the Palestinian inhabitants of Hunin village, razed it to the ground, and destroyed any signs of its existence. Where Hunin once stood, Israel built a Jewish settlement. And, as if the fates of Lidice and Hunin were designed by the same hands, the Jewish settlers in Hunin grew their crops where the village once stood.
Of course, Hunin is the tip of the iceberg. Expulsions of the Palestinians from their land and confiscation of their properties escalated over the years.
Back in Germany and its occupied territories, the pogroms against the Jews had already begun in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. The infamous Crystal Night or Night of the Broken Glass, in March 1933, became one of the many episodes signalling the imminent Holocaust.
But just three years after the Holocaust survivors were liberated from the concentration camps, the founding of the state of Israel was sounding the death knell for the Palestinians.
By all indications, the events leading up to, and during, the wars of 1948 and 1967 were similar to the events leading up to, and during, World War II. The expulsions of Palestinians, followed by expropriation of their land and property, were not strange events to the Jews who escaped to or migrated to Palestine.
There are many documented sad stories about Holocaust survivors liberated from concentration camps only to find their homes occupied by strangers. As if the Israelis were afflicted by acute amnesia, they too confiscated the lands “vacated” by the Palestinians during the wars with Palestine, refusing to let them back, even after the UN Security Council Resolutions on the matter.
And there should have been déjà vu among the Holocaust survivors as the state of Israel began encircling Palestinian settlements with walls, in order to isolate them. It was not too long after the Nazi regime encircled Jews within the walls of ghettos, the halfway houses to the gas chambers.
In occupied Czechoslovakia, Heydrich made it clear that the Germans did not intend to co-exist with the Czechs. His resolve was to expel the Czechs from their country, leaving only those whose racial features qualified them for “Germanisation”.
Sadly, evidence seems to suggest that Israel is succeeding where Heydrich failed, as the Palestinians are being pushed further into the desolate fringes of their country. And, ironically, the wishes of Zionists to emigrate the Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries is akin to the initial plans of the Nazis to “return” the Jews to Palestine.
I agree with the famous physicist Albert Einstein (who was also of Jewish descent) when he said, “The attitude we adopt towards the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards.”
But handsome is as handsome does. But mirage cuts no ice with evidence. So far, the state of Israel has not convinced the world that its actions are just or moral.
I am an idealist. Previously, it was my belief that those who had suffered injustices were not capable of being unjust. But I would expect no sympathy from the Palestinians for my naivety.
Ignorance is a luxury reserved for the sidelines. And sometimes the task is only to hold the mirror and not to judge (yet). That in itself is a hazardous undertaking. But we must be able to say we tried.
Mzwandile Manto is a thinker and community activist.
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South Africans split on ‘apartheid Israel’:
A new survey by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) has found that less than 40% of South African voters believe that the Israeli government is practising apartheid policies against Palestinians.
According to the survey, conducted during October among 1 400 registered voters, 29% of all South Africans strongly agreed with the statement that Israel practised apartheid.
A further 8% somewhat agreed with the statement. Of those surveyed, 24% strongly disagreed, while 1% somewhat disagreed, with black and Indian respondents (37%) the least critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
The survey was carried out both before and after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israeli settlements in which 1 400 people were killed. SRF said that the question of Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people would have carried an unusual degree of prominence.
Israeli forces have been shelling and bombing Gaza since the attack, killing nearly 11 000 Palestinians trapped by the 16-year Israeli blockade and targeting schools, hospitals and UN facilities.
South Africa has been highly critical of Israel’s policies, withdrawing its ambassador in 2018 and recently recalling its diplomatic liaison team which had remained in Tel Aviv since then.
The survey found that 60% of coloured South Africans strongly believed Israel practised apartheid, compared with 42% of white respondents, 22% of blacks and 14% of Indians.
English-speaking South Africans (35%) were far more critical of that country’s policies than Afrikaans speakers (10%). Israel’s strongest defenders were among Afrikaans speakers (36%), followed by Xhosa speakers 33%.
Nearly one quarter of Zulu speakers (24%) supported the assertion that Israel practised apartheid, followed by 19% of the Xhosa-speaking respondents surveyed by the SRF.
The SRF said that although a significant share of registered voters surveyed had not formed a view either way, less than one in four voters believed Israel was an apartheid state.
The survey found that 37% of those earning more than R20 000 a month supported the statement, as did a total of 48% of those paid from R5 000 to R8 000.
But respondents earning R8 000 to R20 000 were the most supportive of Israel, strongly disagreeing with those who backed the statement.
The survey’s findings will be watched with interest by South Africa’s political parties going into next year’s elections, where their stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will undoubtedly come under the spotlight.
The conflict has already cost the former Democratic Alliance representative for social development, Ghaleb Cachalia, his job for failing to toe the party line and continuing to make public comments characterising Israel’s actions as genocide.
The party will view the findings among coloured voters with concern, as will the Patriotic Alliance, which draws most of its support from that group.
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