Submitted by Rob Rutherford As the thin blue line swept across the map and brought drizzle and ice to Gauteng recently, I imagined scenes across the country. Somewhere, a spinster found herself shivering over her knitting and resorted to hot marmalade toast. Incandescent bulbs zizzed in little houses under brooding afternoon cumulonimbi. Unsullied water gurgled […]
Reader Blog
On our Reader Blog, we invite Thought Leader readers to submit one-off contributions to share their opinions on politics, news, sport, business, technology, the arts or any other field of interest.
If you'd like to contribute, first read our guidelines for submitting material to this blog.
Posted inGeneral
The minister and the plane queue
Submitted by Craig Irving Early one recent morning I was milling around the back of a plane queue in Cape Town — the queue stretched from the boarding steps and along the tarmac. The morning threw me some telling nuggets of social commentary. First I had been irritated by the arrival of a big, fat, […]
Posted inGeneral
What future South Africa?
Submitted by Anton Kleinschmidt The last thing that South Africa needs is timid submission to political correctness, because our politicians and bureaucrats are so consistently incorrect. A critical review of current realities and future prospects would serve no purpose if I resorted to watching my every word. One or two of the opinions that I […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Stop treating us like mushrooms
Submitted by David Drew The misinformation being spread by the government and Eskom is getting past the point where we can believe that it is well-meaning but somewhat misguided. The more I hear, the more I believe that either we are suffering from a complete lack of common sense or we’re being treated like mushrooms […]
Posted inBusiness
Down with debasing anagrams — AA, BEE …
Submitted by James Tobias Suspend reality for a moment and imagine I am green and have no political agendas. Hard, but humour me. Has the time arrived for us to rid ourselves of initiatives designed at promoting one sector of the population over another? Fifteen years later, shouldn’t we allow natural forces to decide who […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Energy-crisis myths, misrepresentations and fallacies
Submitted by Bryan Hadfield Much of the recent reporting on the Eskom crisis is based on a poor understanding of the true nature of the energy problems and what would constitute useful responses from the public. Half-truths, disingenuous excuses, obfuscation and myths abound. Turning off your hot-water cylinder for a few hours a day saves […]
Posted inGeneral
The annus horribilis of Africa’s last and only hope
Submitted by Felix Ngasama The year 2008 is so far proving to be South Africa’s annus horribilis since its rebirth as a new democratic state in 1994. Things haven’t been worse since 1994. This year has brought with it the aftermath of the ruling party’s most divisive national elections where Jacob Zuma, a man acquitted […]
Posted inGeneral
Caught in a vicious cycle
Submitted by Michael Tsingo To think that I used to respect cops here! Is it that South African police have been informed to be ruthless and unreasonable when dealing with Zimbabwean offenders? Watching SABC3’s Special Assignment on Tuesday March 11 2008, I was surprised at how cops peacefully rounded up Vaal University of Technology students. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dangerous experiments
Submitted by Dylan Edwards In 1971, Stanford University Professor Philip Zimbardo enlisted a number of university students as subjects of what became known as the Stanford prison experiments. The purpose of the experiments was to determine the behavioural and psychological effects of imprisonment on ordinary people. At the beginning of the experiment, students were randomly […]
Posted inLifestyle
Consequences indeed
Submitted by Gina de Villiers Last week, the mixed-race Margaret B Jones, who was raised in poverty and suffered an abusive childhood while running drugs for local gangs to survive, confessed to being white, to attending a private school and to enjoying a privileged upbringing in a suburb far from her fictitious home. As a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Makoni, political fallacies and impressionable Zimbabweans
Submitted by Terence M Mashingaidze In Zimbabwe’s imagined Orwellian hierarchy of political consciousness and roles, the educated, those in the diaspora and the urbanites are more perceptive about politics and governance issues compared with their supposed uneducated compatriots and rural residents. I have heard on numerous occasions the exhortation by urbanites and those in the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Free State Four: Blame the government
Submitted by Peter Griffiths Over the past week, many people have reacted with outrage to a video made by four University of the Free State students. For the most part I believe an opportunity for debate has been missed by media capitalising on sensationalist reportage, commentators quickly making sure they couldn’t possibly be caught on […]