2010

The Braair4Heritage Foundation struck upon a pure gold idea when they conceived of the National Braai Day. That much is certainly pretty obvious. Bribing traffic officers, cutting corners and reinforcing our own prejudices aside, burning slabs of meat on open flames while downing copious amounts of SAB’s finest is that other common trait we all […]

Forget the fractured syntax and the word scramble of Zuma’s unscripted speech. Forget the flashes of naiveté. Forget the avuncular mien and the real personal warmth.

I am against affirmative action because it is premised on a fallacy. Race is a misleading political and socially loaded concept that has no real or biological basis. The justification for the continued use of these crude categories is a political programme that will not do what it claims to — that is, uplift the […]

Approximately five years ago I argued an appeal in the North Gauteng High Court where the conviction and sentence of a police sergeant, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to 12 years, were overturned and replaced with culpable homicide and a suspended sentence. In brief — responding to calls from people, whose houses […]

I was challenged by a commentator (realpolitik) in my previous blog post to write as a social scientist ie provide some analysis of crime and criminality in South Africa. The problem with writing about crime and violence is that it is so pervasive — violence infuses everything. Some examples: The students at UKZN arranged protests […]

Now that the Fifa 2010 football extravaganza is over and the strike is on hold, it might be opportune to reflect on how far we have, as South Africans, actioned the reconciliation project. The World Cup gave a picture of a nation in unison. Was that a façade? do we still see different races, with […]

In a recent issue of TIME magazine, Joe Klein makes an interesting suggestion. Harking back to an ancient Greek selection process or practice in BCE Athens, called the kleroterion, by which several hundred citizens (“free” males only; Athens had a limited democracy) were randomly chosen by drawing identity tokens every day, and tasked to make […]

Our identity as a nation is defined by the culture we embrace, practise and how it finds social expression. It defines our national character and personality. The promotion of cultural practices is generally an attempt by communities to preserve their own uniqueness of identify, to promote social cohesion and to some extent exercise social control […]

South Africa needs political courage, a change. A change for the better to steer away from the ill-informed direction we are bearing on at the moment. This is exemplified by, but not limited to the Protection of Information Bill, “proposed” media tribunal, lack of service delivery, abuse of taxpayers’ money by the politically connected. This […]