Tinyiko Sam Maluleke

“All my people love me. They would die to protect me,” said Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi towards the end of February 2011 in the midst of massive protests against his 42-year rule. Did he understand what he was saying? Did he really mean what he was saying, or was he (once again) playing the fool […]

On the evening of Thursday April 14 2011, I took part in an excellent discussion panel organised by the Steve Biko Foundation at Wits university in Johanneburg. Driving back to Pretoria later on, a journalist friend called and asked me if I had watched the prime news on national television. Of course, I had not […]

Despite the promises made in the last State of the Nation address, the giant funds set up, the economic growth path outlined, the Obama-like bailouts and incentives to certain industries, it’s not about to rain jobs. It is the fourth month of the year and the job opportunities created remain invisible. South Africa has, admittedly, […]

Long, long ago, animals from all corners of the earth gathered in one place for a big indaba. Conspicuous by their absence from the great gathering were chicken folk. As animals big and small made their way to the meeting place, chicken folk were seen making their way in the opposite direction to attend to […]

What did South Africa expect after voting in support of the UN resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya? That the UN would issue a press statement that would cause Gaddafi immediately to cease all fire and halt all fighter jets? I fail to understand why, having sanctioned a vote in favour at the […]

Rather than regurgitate what his Excellency said at Athlone Stadium on occasion of the celebration of Human Rights Day on March 21, I would rather focus on what he did not say. What attracts me is the eloquence with which he did not say what he did not say. I stand in awe at the […]

I proceed from my recent blog posting on Manuel’s open letter to Manyi Manyi is guilty as charged — no two ways about it. His statements about coloured people being over-concentrated in the Western Cape and his astounding rebuke for them to “stop this over-concentration” are truly shocking. It does not matter in what capacity […]

Let us not drop any titles. Let us not pretend that you are not a cabinet minister. Nor should we act as if Mr Jimmy Manyi is not a “director-general equivalent”. Shamefully, some of us did not partake in the “misery of exile”. Had we done so, we might not have returned from foreign lands […]

“God and Sons” is the illustrious name of one of the hundreds of small business enterprises scattered along the streets of Accra, Ghana, and its surrounding municipalities, villages and townships. En route from Accra to Akropong village one could not escape the merchandise battling for prime position in the narrow streets. Nor could one miss […]

If Côte d’Ivoire was not a country on knife-edge; if there were no two presidents vying for power; if innocent lives were not being needlessly lost in that country; if the region of West Africa and the continent of Africa could afford yet another civil war in that neck of the woods; if the people […]

The court ruling was brief and brutal — dismissal with costs and the judge didn’t even bother to supply the reasons in the verbal version of the judgement as delivered in court on January 17 2011. Thus failed the national chairperson of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi, in her bid to prevent South […]