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Commentator Xolela Mangcu asked last week what Mandela would think of the current political warfare. The answer can be guessed. But there’s a more profound question to consider: How would he, and we, analyse the way democratic debate has deteriorated into devastating factionalism? One answer lies in Mbeki’s penchant for a centralist style of power. […]

The reactions, ranging from disillusionment to disgust, of the legal fraternity and the public at large to the judiciary in general and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) resulting from the latter’s decision on Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe should not be underestimated. The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that urgent action is required to mitigate […]

I’ve often thought that many name change critics approach the debate with a certain intellectual dishonesty. Most of the time I hear that South Africa should not change a name of a city, road, river or geographic region because of the “cost” involved. Critics will usually juxtapose the cost of the name change with how […]

While the Zimbabwean crisis is deepening, the continued focus on the description of the crisis at the expense of finding solutions to it has been unhelpful. That the main protagonists in the crisis have dug themselves into entrenched positions from which they are unwilling or incapable of extricating themselves also is unhelpful. In an effort […]

Grahamstown, the city which I call home, is in danger of losing its name. This has been in the pipeline for some time, but the whole thing flared up again when President Mbeki called Colonel John Graham, after whom the town is named, a butcher; and the excellent local newspaper Grocott’s Mail has been running […]