Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, is what the mafia don advised. It’s a Machiavellian strategy that President Jacob Zuma has embraced and is taking to absurd lengths with his new Cabinet. It is now a veritable army of ministers and deputy ministers that oversees South Africa’s government. This week’s oath taking ceremony […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Are today’s secularists really secular?
By Ryan Peter Yesterday my Twitter feed went crazy after Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s speech “ Law and Religion in Africa” was posted on the internet. In it our chief justice talks about “how the interplay between law and religion could yield a product that is for the common good of all in Africa’s pluralistic […]
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Oh my Gad! Chief Justice Mogoeng wants to mix religion and law
For many who spent their childhood in Pretoria, they’ll remember all too well the threats parents wielded to curb errant behaviour. They would temper a lust for misadventure with the threat of the stout school in Hammanskraal. A hint of madness would be tempered with the threat of Weskoppies in Pretoria West. And any bent […]
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Nouveau red: The cult of representation
The truly fascinating and engaging aspect of being part of a democracy, is the ability to tease, convert or overhaul the status quo for the sake of requisite representation if the electorate deems it necessary. Yes, even when the electorate is said to be largely on zombie mode. The results of India’s election and the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
‘Whites don’t care about blacks’
By Lucille Dawkshas I’m the only white teacher in an all-black township school. Teaching the philosophy of Steve Biko has been quite interesting, given the context. I can relate to Athambile Masola’s “atmosphere of exclusion” in her article “A Biko moment”, where “there are no words or signs declaring the exclusion”. I’ve had several “Biko […]
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Reducing Zille-Mazibuko saga to race a dangerous game
By Kameel Premhid and Dan de Kadt In a recent article for the Mail & Guardian, Verashni Pillay, an associate editor, argues that “white mentors need a wake-up call”. Her central thesis is that white mentors are prone to feeling a sense of ownership over their “black protégés” and that they struggle to cope when […]
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Is it time for the DA to ditch Helen Zille?
What is the optimal length of tenure for a political leader? How to judge the moment when the adulation of your followers curdles, as it inevitably does, and turns to aversion? Do you jump, or do you wait to be pushed from your pedestal? These are questions that Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille will be […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle, News/Politics
A sangoma should lead prayer at president’s inauguration
Every five years the residents of Pretoria are treated to the likes of Robert Mugabe and his rather peculiar scarecrow-like amandla fist-pump. Every five years our eyes are trained on that Herbert Baker monument that is the Union Buildings. Every five years we put on an august show that is a representative manifesto of our […]
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We need an African renaissance and pan-Africanism for a better Africa
Cheikh Anta Diop, the pioneer of the concept of African renaissance, would have us understand the concept as a call to and a programme of action for the renewal of the African continent. Pan-Africanism, as espoused by its originators such as Ras Makonnen, has to do with the mobilisation of Africans and people of African […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
What Lindiwe Mazibuko means to me…
By Lindelwe Dube While there might be some merit in the speculation over Lindiwe Mazibuko’s reasons for departing, it’s important the impact she’s had on young, black women is not lost in the noise. Politics is often thought of as a business for old men. Her entry into and triumph in a male-dominated environment, which […]
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The receding spectre of a one-party state
“If you have a country where everyone is complaining, you’ve got a democracy; if you have one where no-one is complaining, you’ve got a problem” (not bad, huh? — © Saks, D — all rights reserved etc … ). Related to the above is the paradox that huge victory margins in elections are indicative not […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The faceless man
His clean, recently polished shoes face skyward. Their tips slightly worn but well cared for. They are brown and modest but have given him comfort on his long walks. The stillness of his feet is made all the more garish by the silver blanket that now covers his lifeless body. Where was he going? Who […]