Xolela Mangcu in his latest book Biko – A Biography writes about a “big-chief syndrome” that exists among the current ruling elite, in which followers are placed at the mercy of the “chief”. South Africans arguably suffer as much as politicians from big-chief syndrome, in that we imbue leaders with inordinate power. This has to […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Chief Zuma’s Nkandla the last straw
While growing up I remember noticing the glaring inequalities in my village of Ga-Mamabolo, rural Limpopo, when it came to the local chief and residents. There was an abnormal respect for the chiefs and indunas that led them to think they could siphon money from the residents to enrich themselves, with impunity. For example there […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
How many sexual offence cases go to trial?
The annual crime stats present us with figures of how many people reported their crimes in the previous year. These can be incredibly hard to comprehend. It’s hard for me to imagine what 100 people look like, never mind thousands of people. So trying to imagine the 64 514 people who reported a sexual offence between […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We need a rescue act only a woman can deliver
By Sicelo Kunene With the world smarting over its new challenges — ranging from the economic meltdown to new hostilities — there has been a consistent clamour for new leaders. Be it political, corporate, educational or civic, a new way of thinking is required to carve the way forward. The composition of our leaders thus […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Rich black, poor black
We in South Africa, especially in the black community, have, for a very long time, pretended to live and die in a classless society. As a result, we have never critically examined the role and impact of class difference in the fragmentation of our elusive unity. We have never been a homogeneous group and thus […]
Posted inBusiness, General, News/Politics
South Africa on the brink
Two weeks into the truckers’ strike and South Africa stands on the precipice of serious societal breakdown. The Marikana massacre was undoubtedly a tragic event in its own right, although it may prove to have merely been the spark that lit the fuse. The powder keg waiting to explode is the imminent shortage in liquid […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
Something worth saving
We’re about 300km off the coast of South Africa, sailing in the high seas of the Indian Ocean. During the night we caught up to a Spanish longliner, one of the many foreign vessels fishing in the region, others coming from places like Taiwan, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Since yesterday morning we’ve been in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA should test presidential wannabes in live debate
The United States presidential debates – dating from 1960 and drawing about 60 million television viewers – are a sober affair, quite unlike the song-and-dance cabaret that President Jacob Zuma locally relies on to lure voters. This week saw first of three debates between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Though the […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Homosexuality is African
By Eusebius McKaiser As a gay African, with a background in analytic philosophy, the most annoying opposition to my sexual orientation is the claim that my lifestyle is un-African. It is annoying because historic and anthropological claims about the origins of behaviour seldom offer principled reasons why a lifestyle should never be allowed. Colonialists are […]
Posted inNews/Politics
African aid: no more ‘poverty porn’
By Magatte Wade Last Saturday I spoke at the Harvard Women in Business Conference, an annual event that I love. I wore a bright blue dress in a sea of sober black suits and talked to them about the importance of being authentic in order to be happy. These young women, many of them ready […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Syria a geopolitical minefield
Emerging from the widely hailed Arab Spring revolutions is a new threat to world stability and security. The very breadth of the scale of the uprising, stretching across the whole of North Africa and into the Middle East, has ramifications well beyond the region. Traditional world powers like Russia and the US have suffered a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Goodbye democracy, hello tyranny
A lot’s been made of the downgrade in the investment rating awarded to South Africa. It’s clear the international business community has lost faith in our leadership. But there are also strong voices at home speaking out to warn us against the path we’re on. When a patriot of the stature of Bishop Rubin Phillip […]