Thought Leader

The question, what is dominant, human ‘nature’, or ‘nurture’ (culture), has been the motivating force in a debate that has waged since at least the 18th and 19th centuries — for instance in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see his prize-winning Academy of Dijon essay on the question, whether human morals had improved by, or…

I swore off social media rubbishcapades more than a decade ago. I still have all my records from the early and mid 90s regarding my orders for a social media. I still listen to all my records from the mid and late 90s regarding my orders for a Web 2.0 and a social media. I…

By Refiloe Makama & Sipho Dlamini Violence has remained a longstanding characteristic of the country. Gender-based violence (or more accurately: violence perpetuated by men against women and children and other male persons) appears to be on the rise, xenophobic attacks spring up all around the country, and other contact crimes saw an increase in the…

Two days ago, November 9 2019, marked 30 years since the fall of the Berlin wall, and the irony has not escaped some people, that today one witnesses walls going up again everywhere. Nick Miller, in the Sydney Morning Herald (November 2 2019), for example, writes: Thirty years ago the Berlin Wall fell, pulling the…

The Chairwoman Federal Council and Federal Executive Democratic Alliance DA Federal Head Office Website: da.org.za E-Mail: [email protected] Telephone: +27 (0) 21 465 1431 Theba Hosken House 16 Mill Street Gardens Cape Town Democratic Alliance Federal Head Office P.O. Box 1475 Cape Town 8000 Dear Ma’am My best wishes and congratulations to your good-self, on the…

Recently, I decided that I wanted to hold a conference to define a new vision for South Africa. The premise being that the old vision for South Africa, which was defined between 1987 and 1996, has in fact failed. I intended to invite every political party registered with the Independent Electoral Commission (and you can…

By the term, ‘criminality’, I don’t simply mean the perpetration of crime, or criminal acts; I have in mind something far more fundamental, even primal, in the sense of that which remains behind when criminologists, sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists have exhausted all avenues of causal explanation when it comes to the ‘grounds’ or causal antecedents…

By Terence Watts Contact crime continues to increase in SA, up by 2.6% in 2019. Debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often the aftermath and it can be difficult to understand what’s going on, in order to help the affected person, despite this having to do with the way an ancient part of the brain…

I am an individual. I am a unique person. I am not like anyone else and I do not behave like anyone else. I am myself a singular being, and I behave like myself. My individuality is confirmed through the existence of my name and my date of birth. Theoretically there could be someone else…

By Kerry Frizelle While I was lecturing, a female student arrived late*. As she made her way to a seat, another student cat-called her (a whistle).  The female student was already conspicuous because she was late and the cat-call drew the entire class’s attention to her.  It took me a while to process what was…