By Howard Sackstein This week the South African ambassador to Israel was summoned by his hosts for a severe reprimand. Our government’s increasingly aggressive stance on Israel has caused relations between Jerusalem and Pretoria to implode. One by one we have watched our despotic friends in the Middle East tumble from power and we watch […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Inequality, a direct link to political instability
Addressing the challenges of inequality around the world, specifically in Africa, is becoming increasingly paramount. Degrees of inequality at all levels of society negatively impact on poverty-reduction strategies, result in inefficient resource allocations by governments and policymakers, wasted productive potential, exponential growth in dependency ratios within society as well as impaired institutional development. In Africa, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Finding rainbows in the gutter
Why are South Africans so good at doing bad things together, but not good things? A lot of people like to say “the rainbow nation is dead, we can never get on”. But every day people are proving that fact wrong. White and black policemen working together, manning the machine guns like brothers, mowing down […]
Posted inNews/Politics
President Zuma is a hands-on leader
By Sydwell Mabasa We read, with disbelief, the tirade by William Saunderson-Meyer supposedly on the performance of government, entitled “The Zuma government is floundering about” (August 18 2012). Saunderson-Meyer tells us that the President “has been preoccupied with ensuring a second term at the African National Congress’s elective conference in December”. The writer provides no […]
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Makana, Mandela, Marikana — endings and beginnings
Marikana is a name like Soweto, June 16. Like Sharpeville. It is a turning point. History will record it. Future generations will shudder. There are few South Africans whose hearts are not broken by those eight letters. Here where I live in the United States, Americans have bought into the South African Dream, the Rainbow […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Zuma government is floundering about
For almost a year President Jacob Zuma has been preoccupied with ensuring that he gets a second term at the African National Congress’ elective conference to be held in Mangaung in December. Such single-minded determination would be admirable, had it anything to do with wanting to lead the nation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Zuma is not […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Lonmin tragedy exposes the farce of a transformed police force
The killing of more than 30 mineworkers by police on Thursday is a watershed in post-apartheid policing and politics. Whatever the challenges confronting police in the face of an agitated and armed group of workers, the numbers of miners killed seems to reflect an action that seriously transgresses the limits of a reasonable response. The […]
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Workers of Lonmin, my heart bleeds
By Gugu Ndima I watched the bodies drop, I was hoping at some point it would stop. The news reader had cautioned the footage was graphic. Men dropped like bricks on the soil of Lonmin grounds. I teared up and gasped. It was as if I was watching a documentary of a massacre from the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The rainbow’s back
Mark August 14 2012 as a significant day in South African history because at a most remarkable meeting held in Botrivier on that day, the institutional process of Theewaterskloof (TWK) local government truly engaged, for the first time ever, with the Botrivier community process of democratic participation in the practical matters of local government. After […]
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The problem with independent women
Many women who identify as feminist know that August is the one month they’re always asked how the feminist movement is transforming patriarchy. This year has been no different. Among the inquiries I received, a student journalist asked me to answer in 80 words whether I thought the feminist movement had succeeded in achieving equality […]
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Defining the ‘dom’ in Afrikanerdom
Two dozen white zealots, the self-appointed saviours of the Afrikaner people, have fought a decade-long rearguard action in the Gauteng High Court. Judgment is being given at last but it is perhaps not the looming heavy sentences that will cut most deeply. For it is clear that the Boeremag accused – charged with treason, murder […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Women’s lives remain unchanged
This month is dedicated to women and the struggles they go through on a daily basis. I was wondering how I could pay tribute with an article to their heroism — as a son of a woman myself and a little brother to my sister. Then my new colleague and boss, Pregs Govender, wrote something […]