If ever the struggle was to deliver the promise for justice, equality and a world with a “more human face”, it would have been brought about by those of us who were born during the interregnum, that is between 1960 and 1980. The former is the year of the banning of the liberation movement following […]
News/Politics
Posted inHealth, News/Politics
Ebola lays bare the fragile nature of the ‘Africa rising’ narrative
The “Africa rising” narrative of the past couple of years is emotionally compelling for anyone living here. Not because such a rise would be deserved, but because it happens to be true. Investment in sub-Saharan Africa has been booming and the middle-class is burgeoning. Although not everywhere triumphant, democracy has taken vigorous root. On the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The right to insult
I am just a government funk and perhaps have no business to be talk about the much-vaunted right to artistic freedom of expression. Working for the state, it is presumed that I support the Secrecy Bill and desire to suppress freedom of expression. But I, too, am a citizen of this nation-in-the-making with rights. Also, […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Can the NDP be anything more than a fuzzy dream?
For South Africa the triple structural challenges of poverty and high unemployment (25% of the workforce is without work, using the narrow definition) and racial inequality will continue to define our socio-economic profile for the foreseeable future unless we make a radical shift in our growth strategy and trajectory. The reality we must face and […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANC flat-footed by EFF: The enemy within
The ANC’s response to political newcomers, the EFF, bears an eerie resemblance to the DA’s response to Gareth van Onselen. What this shows is that, irrespective of affiliation, parties have a limited ability to deal with, and respond to, political criticism. This is especially the case when the criticism comes from “one of their own”. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Isis and the end of history
In 1989 Francis Fukuyama proudly proclaimed that the world had reached the “end of history”. As the USSR fell into disarray and the Iron Curtain came tumbling down, the world was catapulted towards the acceptance of a liberal democratic political model and the neoliberal economics of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It is of course […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Time for the media to catch a wake-up over the EFF
It’s easy to forget that 94 out of every 100 voters in the May general election did not choose the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Were one dependent only on the South African media, one would easily come away with the impression of that statistical reality being reversed. For such is the media enchantment with the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Juju does Guy Fawkes?
Behold, the end of the world is nigh! The barbarians have breached the gates! Extremists are redrawing maps without the superpowers! Journalists’ heads are rolling — and not only at Independent Newspapers! Jihadists now speak with English accents! Oh, and Juju’s in the house. And he’s not playing nice. Civilisation as we know it is […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Killing in the name of God
No thinking person can escape being horrified by the actions carried out in the name of God by religious fanatics across the world today. Killings, rapes, executions, wholesale slaughter, genocide, torture, and sometimes just ordinary nastiness — a litany of horrors that deny humankind the right to claim ourselves to be a uniformly emotionally intelligent […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
Eskom and Sasol put a low price on life
By Alex Lenferna How much is a human life worth? How much is our future and that of our children worth? Well, the answer to both is “not too much” if Eskom and Sasol’s pollution-friendly tactics are anything to go by. Allow me to explain. On paper, South Africa has some pretty decent environmental legislation […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANC’s ideological arteriosclerosis throttles job growth
It’s one of the staples of South African journalism. It plays as comedy but it is actually closer to tragedy. The scenario is a congress of one of the trade unions or leftist political movements. The delegates, uniformly attired in radical chic T-shirts and caps, express solidarity with the exploited working class and declaim that […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Grieve, thy beloved country
By Judy Sikuza In 1994 a colossal death occurred in South Africa. The subject befallen by fate’s calling was none other than Accused Number 1948 – universally known as apartheid. The fall of this stupendous monster came with a promise of the new — a rainbow nation South Africa — where our differences would be […]