Thought Leader

In case you didn’t get the memo: liberalism is passé. Society’s (imagined) love affair with liberal politics is over, and you’re supposed to be cheering the advent of a new polity: the rise of “radicalism” as the new descriptor of choice, one to be employed by a million student activists and thought leaders in their…

By Melo Magolego Black South Africans have a penchant for waxing lyrical about botho/ubuntu. It is an ideology which, much like Pratley Putty, we seek to export worldwide. An ideology to which we claim intellectual property and boldly assert is inextricably linked to our being Africans. But is this thing really that unique? Or do…

The struggle for economic freedom predates us all. It began many years ago. Long before the ANC or the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) ever existed, and even long before the arrival of the employees of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652. When Nguni tribes, moved south of the African continent in…

The country watches transfixed as the ANC creaks and groans like a wooden ship trapped in Antarctic ice. The ANC has long kept the lid on things, like some benevolent dictator might have done. But now the ship threatens to break apart. There goes the life boat. People cling to its splintered timbers hoping these…

It is not surprising that South Africans have trouble thinking straight. The poor live in a state of anxiety and insecurity, while high crime rates have led to a fortress mentality among the rich. Fear and anger permeate our opinions and shape our politics. The haves persist in the shadow of Zimbabwe’s ruin; the have-nots endure,…