Posted inNews/Politics

What next for SA-Israel relations?

By Howard Sackstein This week the South African ambassador to Israel was summoned by his hosts for a severe reprimand. Our government’s increasingly aggressive stance on Israel has caused relations between Jerusalem and Pretoria to implode. One by one we have watched our despotic friends in the Middle East tumble from power and we watch […]

Posted inNews/Politics

How far we’ve fallen

By Rafique Gangat As SA’s first career diplomat of colour, I am pained to learn of what is happening to my beloved country. I took part in the painful struggle for freedom and eventually shared in the joy of liberation and democracy in 1994 and since then worked tirelessly to build the new SA. My […]

Posted inNews/Politics

A Madiba child

By Shireen Mukadam I had a dream. I was lying on the grass of the Boston Commons surrounded by three new friends. A Jordanian-Syrian, studying in Australia. A Catalonian Spaniard working in Colombia. And Marube from Kenya — a 52-year-old, who has aspirations of resuming his law degree, which he commenced at 26 in 1986 […]

Posted inGeneral

How can we see from this high horse?

There are too many high horses in South Africa. Too many haughty opinions. And not enough people admitting to their faults. We need to all climb down and roll around in the muck for a bit. Act like pigs and love it. Admit that we are shit and get on with it. I will not […]

Posted inGeneral

I apologise for apartheid

By Ronèe Robinson Ag hemel – wat op aarde het FW besiel? (What on earth got into FW?) Does he really believe that apartheid merely failed because black people did not want to live with separate development? What about all the injustices that were perpetrated under apartheid? Apartheid was not merely about a dream (or […]

Posted inGeneralNews/Politics

FW: Why sorry is the hardest word

Amidst the blanket coverage of FW De Klerk’s remarks on CNN, few have stopped to consider that Mr de Klerk may actually have meant what he said, and said what he meant. I believe De Klerk will be judged a towering figure of history, and that his closest historical proxy is Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev did […]

Posted inGeneral

Apartheid for better or for worse

I have fallen into the trap myself: become so outraged by government mismanagement that I wanted to beat them with the biggest stick I could: “It is worse than it was under apartheid!” Unfortunately, this is not what “worse than under apartheid” communicates to most South Africans. It is all too easily read as “better […]