Thought Leader

  The novel coronavirus has taken over South Africans’ lives in the past month.  At the beginning of the month, the country was still hosting major sporting events and big gatherings; now we’re in lockdown.  Some quick research into news coverage from the past month reveals what South Africans are most afraid about, but also…

* * * The rain has such precise teeth. She nibbles down the paths and through the bushes, along the gutters and around my veranda chair like a cat. Who knows that she is gobbling us up, swallowing us down? When will she finish?   When eyes smell the stillness and see the music, droplets…

Dear President Ramaphosa, I have two dozen questions for you, please feel free to answer them in the comments section below. 1. Where are the success stories from Affirmative Action and Black Empowerment, that say the deserving beneficiaries as connected have started new businesses, not simply borrowed money to buy into existing businesses, that were…

Imagine for a moment that the human race was extinct and that instead in its place several billion humanoid pigs had taken up residence on planet earth. Pigs, yeah let’s say pigs — or dogs, or cats or birds for that matter, it doesn’t really make a difference. Let’s say that these pigs (or dogs…

The worst thing about limitations on individual freedoms, rights and responsibilities is that they impinge upon your options, choices and decision-making. Take for example the decision to deploy ANC cadres to government, the public service, the public enterprises and the parastatals; this has wrought havoc in your life, making it impossible for you live, work,…

If Eskom is bent, what is it going to take to straighten it out?

South Africa Is Not Well Just Another South African Looking For A Handout In Another Get Rich Quick Scheme Black people are angry. White people are angry. Indian people are angry. Coloured people are angry. Chinese people are angry. It would seem that South Africans of all races are angry. There is so much hate…

There is a huge, and unjustified, prejudice towards homeopathic medicine in contemporary societies, and I suspect that it is driven by the financial interests of what is colloquially known as Big Pharma, of which medical doctors are the involuntary, if not unwitting agents every time they prescribe some or other mainstream medication. Don’t get me…

Dr Gloria Marsay People faced with adversities in developing countries struggle to bridge the gap between education and work. A key challenge for 21st century schools involves serving culturally diverse students with appropriate transferable skill domains, i.e. deep human skills and advanced technical skills essential for economic empowerment in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (#4IR), as described…

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…