By Lehlohonolo Mofokeng Although our township schools prove year in year out that they are capable of producing world movers and sharers, much of their potential is untapped because of factors that only JK Rowling could describe in depth. But what do privileged schools do to level the educational playing field that is often characterised […]
News/Politics
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
‘Why would anyone want to become a doctor?’
By Dr Owen Wiese I remember very clearly an incident during my community service, when I walked into the trauma unit at a day hospital in Cape Town one morning and found a patient lying on the trolley, bleeding profusely from a knife wound. I picked up the patient’s file and read: stab wound to […]
Posted inGeneral, Media, News/Politics
The real problem with the DA’s Values Charter
The opportunity for a genuine debate about liberalism in South Africa, started by the DA’s adoption of its Values Charter, is likely to be squandered. In two separate pieces, MPs Marius Redelinghuys and Gavin Davis, both supporters of new DA Leader Mmusi Maimane, demonstrate the real reason for their staunch defence of the Charter. It […]
Posted inNews/Politics
E-tolls: An ANC act of rare political courage
There is a slowly dawning realisation on the part of the African National Congress government that South Africa is staring down the fiscal abyss. The situation is dire. There are at least four public agencies — electricity supplier Eskom, SA National Roads Agency (Sanral), South African Airways (SAA), and the SA Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) — […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Something’s fishy in the state of Sanral
Call SA’s national ANC government nothing but determined! In the face of widespread opposition against the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) and e-tolling, even from the ANC’s own Gauteng legislature, Cyril Ramaphosa has come up with a “rescue plan”. The details of this plan have seen the expected opposition from Outa (Opposition to Urban […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Factional politics destroying ANC from within
The appointment of Danny Jordaan as the new mayor of the troubled Nelson Mandela Bay municipality is interesting from two perspectives. First it demonstrates the central weakness in our electoral system ie that the will of the people is subordinate to the interests of the governing party. Jordaan was parachuted to this role, he wasn’t […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
SA govt must face court for xenophobic violence, migration policy
By Evans Wadongo The South African government will soon be in the country’s high court because petitioners from countries like Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia are displeased by the spate of xenophobic attacks and murders of migrants from their countries. These attacks and deaths have also sparked the #WeAreAfrica hashtag on social media, a 30 000 person […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Eskom simply has no clue…or does it?
Eskom. Just mentioning the name results in a flurry of negative emotions coursing through the veins of just about every South African. This energy crisis is probably the single most devastating event in the past 20 years, it’s destroying the confidence of the country as a whole and places our entire economy in a chokehold. […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Let’s talk about ‘black tax’
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost … he simply wishes to make it possible for a man to […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Does Maimane give young black men new hope?
By Prof Kopano Ratele Forget about the politics, although that is reason we have come to know of him. Forget about the politics of race too, even though our society is the paradigm for the world on how race can be brutally politicised. And forget, for now, the “white sexual object”, psychoanalytically speaking. Listening to […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Ignoring the Oliphant in the room
During her Budget speech this week, Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant extolled the virtuous circle of wages and economic growth. Workers needed to be paid decent wages to drive economic growth, she told MPs. “At the risk of sounding too simplistic” this made sense because South Africa’s economy is largely consumer-driven. “When workers earn a living […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Maimane in, but DA still struggles with discernible identity
Mmusi Maimane it is, then. Certainly since the resignation of Helen Zille in April, Maimane seemed the obvious choice to lead the DA. A near-90% landslide victory against candidate Wilmot James showed just that, and underlined the blistering speed of his ascension. On the face of it Maimane looks good for the undertaking: greatly composed, […]