Vusi Gumede

The world we live in remains a disturbingly dangerous and very fragile place, largely because of our own making. Amin Maalouf opens his provocative book, In the Name of Identity, with an analogy that may be worth reproducing for this polemic. Maalouf talks of “a young man born in France of Algerian parents clearly carries […]

There are many things that Africans do which give Africa and Africans a bad name or rather there are things that folks with black skin do which tarnish the image of those with black skin. However, as one of the greatest pan-Africanists ever alive — Marcus Garvey — once argued: “The black skin is not […]

A world-renowned scholar of public policy, Yehezkel Dror, recently reemphasised the point that policy and politics “closely interact, often overlap, and in part cannot be separated even analytically”. This seemingly obvious point, with far-reaching implications, has also been made by various eminent scholars. On poverty, Martin Ravallion — a leading scholar on issues of poverty […]

One of the most powerful texts ever written, The Communist Manifesto, opens with a very instructive statement: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. This statement still holds and will probably hold for another century or so. Almost all the nations in the world have to contend with this […]

In a timeless collection of African short stories, folk tales and poetry, edited by Barbara Nolen, the poem titled The Moon succinctly captures what this polemic is about. Let me reproduce the said poem: “The moon lights the earth It lights the earth but still The night must remain the night The night cannot be […]

Noam Chomsky, an eminent scholar and activist, in his celebrated Profit over People reflects that: “The first great experiment was a bad idea for the subjects, but not for the designers and local elites associated with them. This pattern continues until present: placing profit over people. The consistency of the record is no less impressive […]

Martin Luther King Junior, in one of his most powerful sermons ever — the one delivered at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Christmas Eve of 1967 — stated the obvious but critical that “we must either learn to live together as brothers, or we are all going to perish together as fools”. The […]

Many thinkers, ranging from as far back as Plato and Aristotle to as recent as Hannah Arendt, spent inordinate amounts of time trying to make sense of the world we live in. With similar intensity and dedication, pioneering psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget devoted significant energies in an effort to understand the […]

Things could get worse. The world economy is at a crossroads again, if not in a mess. As some have said before, certain challenges present opportunities — this is, in my view, one of those challenges (ie the current global financial crisis), which presents another opportune moment for humanity as a whole. The gist of […]

David Diop’s Reflections on Colonialism – Africa – convey important points; a message one cannot ignore: Africa tell me Africa Is this you this back that is bent This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation This back trembling with red scars … That is Africa your Africa That grows again patiently obstinately And […]

David Reynods, in a chapter titled “Sub-Saharan Africa: The collapse of the State” in his book, One World Divisible, states that “like caste and religion in India, tribal and ethnic identities, though often colonial constructs, became politicised after independence because they were potential conduits to secure state resources”. He goes on to say that “most […]