Thought Leader

By Zdena Mtetwa-Middernacht It is Election Day in Belgium. I am not voting but I’ve taken the walk to the polling station. The polling station is a school a few hundred meters from our home, in a little Flemish town on the outskirts of Brussels. I’m at the playground with the kids while my husband…

Avidity defined as: keen interest, enthusiasm or “a positive feeling of wanting to push ahead with something”. Now that we’ve got that out the way I can focus on what it is that has conjured this feeling that I have. It is not just the freedom of a new keyboard, typing hasn’t been this comfortable…

Dear Donald Trump, Thank you! In the days following the election I have seen numerous articles highlighting the follies of your choices, the irresponsibility of your comments, the virulence of your campaigning and the divisiveness of your words. In spite of all this, I would like to take a moment and say thank you. Thank…

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” This is supposedly a quote from Winston Churchill. Whether it is a real quote or simply a quote birthed from the internet, the statement holds true. When it comes to mass governance the sad truth is that humanity is kind of bad…

Johannesburg is a very different beast to Cape Town. Bigger, more dense, constantly growing; it’s the economic heart of South Africa. Despite its faults, the local ANC government in Joburg has received mostly clean audits and managed to do okay given the massive challenges it faces in such a complex area. There is a lot…

Blessed are the poor, in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus. (Commas restored) . Jesus was as usual talking about solidarity: about how we join with others and, in spirit, feel the world, and suffering, the same as them. This is the kingdom of owning the other as self, the self as…

It is regrettable that so many thinking people today – even those in the discipline of psychology – regard the work of the founder of psychoanalysis (which is by no means synonymous with psychology) as being of no more than historical importance, and Sigmund Freud himself as a historical curiosity. And yet, Freud is more…

The report by Municipal IQ (May 11, 2016) on the trends in service-delivery protests in the country is indeed very disturbing. A worrying component of these protests is the increasing level of violence that is associated with these protests. What is even more worrying is the fact that the violence is mostly perpetrated by the…

By Lesego Setou I’ve been observing with great interest how the ANC is lining up its election strategy, and the strategy is simple, let’s blame President Jacob Zuma. Local elections are coming and the politicians are nervous, their elevated blood pressure is partly caused by the fear of losing Gauteng due to the e-tolls, not…

Two out of three ain’t bad South Africans are continuously singing the same tune to the DA, to borrow from the artist Meatloaf “I want you, I need you, but there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you”. But unlike South Africans Meatloaf goes on to say, “but two out of three ain’t bad”….