News/Politics

While Republicans prepare to bombard presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama with claims of flip-flopping on Iraq and everything else, Africa — should he prevail — stands on the threshold of gaining something more significant than just a first African-American president: liberation from an old boys club of despicable tyrants. Incredible as this may […]

The lazy fallacy that the alternative (i.e. life organised on conscious production for need) to societies based on exploitation and the profit motive is incompatible with human nature represents the clearest sign yet of humanity strolling downhill with the inscription written in bold on its back: “The hour of rigour’s flight”.The strength of this fallacy […]

My most recent memory of Jerusalem stretches back more than 20 years. I had just spent a year studying in Israel — first Hebrew in Jerusalem and then architecture in Haifa — and had decided to return home to Johannesburg. I was visiting friends at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, […]

Submitted by Anthea Garman. Across 16 single lectures, one workshop devoted to education and a series of two about the law, it was extremely interesting this year that many of the Winter School speakers chose this moment to publicly express their worry about the state of nation. To give you a sense of some of […]

This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: What does it mean to be a revolutionary in the new South Africa?

The issue of coloured identity surfaces every now and then. It surfaced again last week with the news that a group of coloured leaders are considering starting a social movement to focus on issues concerning the coloured community. My immediate reaction was to dismiss this as the work of non-progressive forces who do not buy […]

Over on ThoughtLeader, Bert Olivier, an academic of the philosophical persuasion, rails against those who defend “the unforgiveable practices of capitalism”. I hardly know where to start, but as one of the people who frequently offers a defence for the practices of capitalism, I’ll make a few general points in rebuttal, though.

In well-to-do circles in the West, it has become de rigueur to criticise China for its role in Africa. The Economist, the bible of the business class, has labelled the Chinese “new colonialists.” Concerned liberals in Hollywood accuse China of facilitating genocide in Darfur. More recently, the American and British governments have expressed disappointment that […]

Following the transition to non-racial democracy in 1994, it emerged that no-one had ever supported apartheid. Actually, some had but they had emigrated or were dead. This must have come as a relief to everyone, particularly to black people. It also emerged that many more people had fought against apartheid than had been apparent at […]

I want to make it clear that this is not an argument, but a recount of events of the past week. The events have been so fluid that I decided I would just recount some of the highlights. I am writing this piece at a very strange and ungodly hour. It’s well past midnight. It’s […]