News/Politics

So there I was in the voting booth this morning, pen in hand, examining the list of candidates in my ward. I live in the suburbs, so the queue was a classically maid-and-madam scenario. Earlier, a middle-aged man standing in front of me had phoned to postpone his flight plan: this is the sort of […]

By Mthokozisi Nkosi Leaving the ANCYL was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. And once I became a member of the Democratic Alliance Students’ Organisation (Daso) at the University of Pretoria I endured endless insults from my former “comrades”. A few years ago I made a decision to build a better SA. On […]

By Faatimah Hendricks It’s just two days until plenty of youth, including myself, will be casting their vote for the first time in local government elections. Deciding on who to select as the caretaker of my neighbourhood and the perfect person to run my city has been giving me sleepless nights (well, almost) as I […]

By Emma Louise Powell He is sitting huddled up in a bundle with his knees drawn close for warmth, leaning listlessly against a cold concrete pillar while he exhales the last clouds of glueish haze encasing his lungs. His torn, brown rags resemble the hessian sacks that line the floors of agricultural warehouses. He looks […]

The best conceivable result for African National Congress supporters in next week’s local government elections is not a landslide win for their party. Paradoxically, in delivery terms best result would be a vastly improved showing by the opposition parties. Local government is in collapse. Corruption and incompetence are not only costing billions, but have eroded […]

I am not interested in people telling me what is wrong about the Afrikaner National Congress (sic). Rather I am keen to hear what they are going to do to fix it, that is, if it is imperfect. It is either Afrikaners are part of the problem or part of the solution. One thing that […]

In 1843 Karl Marx came up with a phrase that turned out to be one of the most enduring in all Marxist thought: religion is the opium of the masses. With this phrase, Marx attempted to convey his belief that religion was invented by man to provide him with some consolation for his suffering and […]

There is a strange, black beneficiary of affirmative action (AA) and ongoing political and economic change who refuses to acknowledge the gains and opportunities provided by majority rule, especially ANC policies. It is always curious, for me, to read or listen to a story of a black person who refuses to acknowledge that, directly or […]

Should the British media wish to treat the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with the sycophancy that one associates with that which the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation accords Mad Bob, on their own bowed heads be it.