By Lehlohonolo Mofokeng There is no shortage of evidence that our basic education is in shreds. That being said, the question that we should be asking ourselves is: how do we get out of this mess? How do we ensure that our learners, in spite of an already established culture of mediocrity, start to believe […]
Mandela Rhodes Scholars
Mandela Rhodes Scholars who feature on this page are all recipients of The Mandela Rhodes Scholarship, awarded by The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, and are members of The Mandela Rhodes Community.
The Mandela Rhodes Community was started by recipients of the scholarship, and is a growing network of young African leaders in different sectors. The Mandela Rhodes Community is comprised of students and professionals from various backgrounds, fields of study and areas of interest. Their commonality is the set of guiding principles instilled through The Mandela Rhodes Scholarship program: education, leadership, reconciliation, and social entrepreneurship.
All members of The Mandela Rhodes Community have displayed some form of involvement in each of these domains.
The Community has the purpose of mobilising its members and partners to collaborate in establishing a growing network of engaged and active leaders through dialogue and project support
[The Mandela Rhodes Scholarship is open to all African students and allows for postgraduate studies at any institution in South Africa. See The Mandela Rhodes Foundation for further details.]
Posted inNews/Politics
My criticism of Thabo Mbeki’s OR Tambo lecture
By Zukiswa Mqolomba Former President Thabo Mbeki’s OR Tambo lecture is indeed most welcome as it is a timely call to action to save the African National Congress (ANC) from a burgeoning trend of greed, avarice and an insatiable appetite to amass personal wealth, while millions of South Africans continue to live in wide-spread poverty […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, General, News/Politics
Aesthetics of power and questioning what a ‘good’ university is
By Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini It’s been two weeks of being at the University of Zululand (UniZulu) as a contract lecturer for the Philosophy Department. Perhaps these personal reflections are slightly premature but I think that they do bear some merit. I have only been on the main campus which is in Kwadlangezwa, which is in […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Media, News/Politics
The Remember Khwezi protest has shone a spotlight on our society’s patriarchal nature
In the last chapter of The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court, author Mmatshilo Motsei starts her concluding remarks by quoting Sello wa Loate: [w]e need to re-evaluate our value system as a society. The highly competitive environment we have created and the resultant conflict and pressure on different sections of our society make post-apartheid black […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Brexit: Should ‘ordinary people’ be taking a decision as big as this?
By Abigail McDougall Between last night and this morning an “I’m in for Britain” poster popped up in the window of my upper-middle-class neighbours. This display of support for Remain is rather gutsy for Kenilworth, Warwickshire, where Leave posters are in many windows and I’ve had Leave propaganda raining through my mailbox for weeks. It […]
Posted inEquality, General
If you are serious about decolonising Africa, don’t study abroad
By Zinhle Manzini In 2017 I will hopefully be registering for my PhD in philosophy. In thinking about this decision, I was charmed by the idea of doing my postgraduate degree abroad, hoping it would broaden my horizons as a scholar, an academic and as a person. Most academics that I have interacted with during […]
Posted inEquality, General
My dream was to matter and not be invisible
By Lisa Thelma Sidambe Most of us enjoy a juicy, delicious and well-cut steak. Some like to have it casually and others have it to punctuate a celebratory mood. I am sure even now some of us are impatiently waiting for these festivities to be over so that we can have a lusciously juicy steak […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Congrats Malema, you have made us proud
By Zukiswa Mqolomba Firstly, I would like to congratulate the honourable Julius Malema for having graduated with his first degree in communications and African studies from the University of South Africa. Secondly, I’d like to congratulate him for being accepted for his first postgraduate degree, an honours in philosophy. These are inspiring achievements that should […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Violence is a necessary process of decolonisation
By Zinhle Manzini On February 25 it was reported that two buildings and a car were burnt at the North West University Mafikeng campus, yet this incident is not the only occurrence of violence that has disrupted some of South Africa’s universities. One would recall that a bus was also set alight a week ago […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Debunking economic myths about African growth
By Zukiswa Mqolomba Recent reports on Africa’s development have been characterized by high levels of optimism. This trend is totally different from previous commentary, which was riddled with pessimistic accounts about the future of the continent. Development agencies cite the rapid economic growth of some African countries as a sign of economic development. Seven of […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Lifestyle, News/Politics
If Rhodes must fall, art must burn
By Zinhle Manzini Last week it was reported that the Rhodes Must Fall students had removed paintings from the university’s walls and set them alight. While some people remain unclear about the motive of such an act, some were quick to see it as property damage. Rumours have it that the paintings that were set […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, News/Politics
A return to the African Renaissance
By Zukiswa Mqolomba “I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines […] Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines. […] Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that […]