News/Politics

It’s raining in Johannesburg. In Africa, we believe rain is a blessing, that it cleanses, brings new life. This week African National Congress delegates at Polokwane make the most important political decision the movement has taken since 1956 when it voted to allow white members, and pan-Africanists under Robert Sobukwe broke away. In the same […]

We say we want democracy — but we don’t seem to like it much when we see it. How else to interpret the breast-beating from commentators and some delegates here at Polokwane after the opening day of the ANC conference? Most of us no doubt know by now that day one of Polokwane was a […]

Sunday will go down as the day on which President Thabo Mbeki lost the leadership of the ANC, but it’s party chairperson Terror Lekota who goes home with the biggest headache. What a day! It’s never been this good (for journalists) and so bad (for the ANC). The day ended as it began: with a […]

I believe in affirmative action. This noble policy has ensured that this blogger has had plenty of experience with being thrown into the deep end and expected to sink swim. It’s old news by now that it seems that I have made history by being the first blogger to gain accreditation for the Mecca of […]

The (probably apocryphal) story is told that when Field Marshal Tito, president of the former Yugoslavia, was on his death bed, he heard the noise of thousands of voices outside his window and asked what was going on. “The people have come to say goodbye,” his aid is said to have replied. To which Tito […]

It’s worth reminding ourselves of the events surrounding Belgian paedophile abductor Marc Dutroux. Institutions that are meant to protect society can sometimes contribute to misdeeds of the most sinister kind. The Dutroux case was characterised by deliberate police incompetence and behind-the-scenes murder of witnesses. In June 1995, two eight-year-old friends, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, […]

A fair amount of drama is happening in the old homeland this weekend. It’s the Mbeki-Zuma stand-off in the high street, guns at the ready. For the bulk of the white population, as well as some of the black diamonds (a name given to the emerging black middle class), this is a scary time. The […]

The After 8 Debate raised an important question for me: What are the qualities of leadership? The debate provided important perspectives, especially that leadership is both complex and contextual. What qualities should the president of South Africa have to implement a programme of redistribution? As I argued in an earlier article, that programme is needed […]

The most unfortunate reality at this moment is that our collective fate and future is in the hands of just over 4 000 ANC delegates to next week’s Polokwane conference when the party is facing its worst internal crisis yet. Therefore, the key question we should all be asking is just how this conference can reach […]