By Jan Hofmeyr These are trying times for Brazil and South Africa, the southern members of the Brics grouping of emerging nations that also include China, Russia and India. After years of robust growth their economies are in the doldrums, and their governments lack latitude in the options to revive them. It is not only […]
News/Politics
Posted inNews/Politics
Birds of a political feather
Politicians with competing ideologies like to think of themselves as fundamentally different: socialist versus capitalist, libertarian as opposed to authoritarian, etc. Given, however, the universality of the human condition, they are actually often more alike in their personal foibles and personalities than they would care to acknowledge. Or have us to notice. For example, there […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
It is too soon to forget about apartheid
I recently watched the movie Woman in Gold. It is based on a true story about Maria Altmann’s journey in getting the Austrian government to return to her a Klimt painting that was stolen from her family during the Nazi occupation of Austria during World War II. This women’s journey towards justice is a long […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Nuclear, single or same-sex family structure does not matter, healthy parenting does
This week Australia’s Victorian government introduced legislation granting same-sex couples equal adoption rights. The passing of this legislation has been duly celebrated across the world. In addition to this, the US Supreme Court’s legislation of same-sex marriage in June this year was lauded as a triumph of equality, and also saw an enormous celebratory response. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The siren songs of Petty Officer Malema
The Economic Freedom Fighters have unveiled another plank in their nuanced political policy platform. Added to such subtleties as the right to prevent Parliament from operating, and to seize without compensation land and industry for divvying up among their supporters, the EFF are now demanding the removal of the Afrikaans words in the national anthem. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#IAmStellenbosch and the quiet violence of the ‘colour blind’
Hanging in an office at my old school is a yellowed newspaper article titled “School for the colour blind!” featuring photographs of children of different races laughing and playing cricket together. It was 1981 — three years after the small, independent school started admitting learners of all races despite apartheid norms — and to the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Public Protector in the courts – what does it mean for me?
By Tess Peacock This week in the news Thuli Madonsela, our Public Protector, is going to court on the Nkandla matter. Why? This is about power, power and power. The Constitution divides government into three components: the executive (the president and his ministers), the judiciary (all the courts) and the legislature (our representatives in Parliament). […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Corporate leaders destroyed by their own greed
It’s been a bad run for caring capitalism. An unvarnished display this week was the monstrous rapaciousness unleashed when captains of industry lack any sense of social responsibility or personal morality. First there was business boy wonder Martin Shkreli’s inadvertent self-immolation, metaphorically speaking. Then there was the slow motion crash of Volkswagen, the world’s second […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Of black pain, animal rights and the politics of the belly
By Shose Kessi It is interesting how bodily and affective experiences are often weaved out of what is deemed “rational” theorising of current events and political talk. How can my mind operate separately from the rest of my being? Where does the separation occur? At the eyes? The nose? The mouth? The belly? The waist? […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Media, News/Politics
SA’s ‘trade union corset’: A response to William Saunderson-Meyer
By Darcy du Toit I read William Saunderson-Meyer’s blog “Time to ease the trade union corset that confines SA” with a jaundiced eye. I am quoted as “warning”, at the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law congress in Cape Town last week, “that while the basic principles of labour law remain unaltered, the […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Our diverse cultural heritage defies the stereotype, let’s keep it that way
By Busani Ngcaweni It was January 2000. Heavy rains in the north-eastern parts of KwaZulu-Natal were causing mayhem for rural communities and across the border in neighbouring Mozambique where search-and-rescue teams from the South African National Defence Force were in full force. Apart from the environmental and livelihoods impact of these heavy rains in this […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics, Sport
Die Bokke must get humiliated, for the good of this country
By Nduh Msibi South Africa, so divided, yet so united. Thank you Springboks. Never has the country been so divided and all the while united over what it wants for its rugby team than at the present moment. The problem with the current team is twofold, the lack of transformation and the approach of our […]