The monarch believes Swaziland belongs to him personally and all the country’s resources belong to him
Protests
Posted inEquality
A lesson on equality for the US from post-apartheid South Africa
If the protests in the United States and elsewhere are about systemic racial oppression, then South Africa’s experience is that unless toxic concentrations of political power are addressed, deep structural changes are unlikely to occur
Posted inEquality, General, Health, News/Politics
Inequality and violent protests in South Africa
In 2014 I wrote a piece for this site on the work of psychoanalyst, Paul Verhaeghe, specifically the book in which he writes about the link between inequality in a market-based society and health problems across a wide spectrum. In addition to stress and anxiety symptoms, Verhaeghe pointed to something confirmed by other researchers too, […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The Tshwane protests, Freud and how to control a crowd
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 […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Balance of power contests are driving violent community protests
As a society we must all resist and reject the temptation to accept that the violent protests and political killings that seem to occur all the time during the local election years is the new normal. It should not be! The time has come to take responsibility, show leadership and engage through all our stakeholder […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Protests herald the emergence of new democratic subjectivities
We are in Valletta, Malta, at a conference at present, and I have just done a presentation on the reasons for the widespread nihilism in the world today. What struck me was the fact that a number of the other delegates who came to me afterwards to talk to me about my presentation expressed their […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Student protests as ‘acting out’
The recent, and still continuing university student protests across the country call for a more fundamental theoretical approach. Although one could always address them at the level of “common sense” or everyday discourse (which is what I have done here before), it is perhaps time to elaborate on the fruits yielded by a psychoanalytical perspective […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Bravo students: ‘The doors of learning and culture shall be opened’
The ongoing student protests across the country confirm, unambiguously, the failure of the neoliberal system in South Africa, which requires a hefty increase in student fees every year, given the fact that universities are now part of the invidious neoliberal economic system, instead of being state-funded public institutions. And don’t tell me that it is […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Let’s talk about the protests. Where is the empathy and outrage?
“The country is burning”. “Burning frustration”. “Hot-headed in South Africa”. These are the headlines that abound about the many protests that are currently erupting around South Africa. On television we witness mobs of black people apparently running amok, building barricades and burning tyres. We hear of the disenfranchised masses dancing, picking up rocks and supposedly […]