Thought Leader and Activate! Change Drivers went on the campaign trail to find young people doing it for themselves
Service delivery
Posted inEquality
Active citizenship must be revived
Because all we have now are commemorations of Freedom Day and the dreams it once carried
Posted inNews/Politics
Political elites, not foreigners, are to blame for South Africa’s problems
What if we told foreigners to voetsek? We have fallen victim to the illusion of scarcity. And we are led to wrongly believe immigrants are a threat.
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Democratic agitation needs a different protest language
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 […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Midnight in Parys: A journey into the dark heart of the South African platteland
I have never been to Paris, even though my forefathers hail from France. Yes, as my real so-called Christian name (André le Roux du Toit, or André Letoit for short) suggests, I am of exactly 50% French ancestry. This, in spite of the fact that the only few snippets of French I know consist of […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Service delivery: Could improvements have been greater, more equitable?
By Aalia Cassim The popular narrative in the run-up to the elections sprawled across South African televisions, billboards and suburban walls is largely premised on service-delivery successes in post-apartheid South Africa. It is true that the asset and service deficit characteristic under the apartheid government has markedly improved. But almost daily reports of misused municipal […]
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 […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The hidden food security crisis in South Africa
By Refiloe Joala As a nation I believe we have made a concerted effort of doing away with the overplayed notion of an Africa that conjures up images of hungry children with flies around their faces staring blankly into a camera lens. Although in the case of South Africa, one would imagine images of endless […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Matching reforms to institutional realities
Social service delivery is weak across the developing world. While there is substantial heterogeneity across regions and countries, the picture of failing services is a familiar one. Challenges such as systematically high levels of absenteeism among teachers, doctors and nurses, persistent rates of drug stock outs — particularly in rural health clinics, rates of leakage […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How should we remember Zuma’s presidency?
History is a complex social construction but a few grand narratives tend to stick out. Among other stories we’ll remember Mandela as the reconciliatory president, asking us to throw our “pangas into the sea” and forgive. We’ll remember Mbeki’s poetic appeal to our African identity, an aloof renaissance man and, bitter-sweet, as the statesman who […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Can we save the ANC?
The ANC is a party at war with itself. A party grappling with the machinations of converting from a liberation movement into a modern political party in government. This has proved to be a huge challenge as it also seeks to balance the fears and stubbornness of the old guard with the militancy and impatience […]
Posted inGeneral
Why we need electoral reform
By Ntombenhle Khathwane In the recent weeks, news headlines have been dominated by the textbook saga in Limpopo and Eastern Cape. This happens a few months before the ANC policy conference, during which it would be expected that the ruling party would discuss how to make its time in government more efficient. Although this was […]