Taryn Hagerman/ US Army
South Africa’s defence force has been in decline for some time as its budget has shrunk while its duties have changed.
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi speaks in parliament.
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Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.
Nelson and Winnie Mandela, a day after he was released from prison in
1990.
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The early Nelson comes across as a man consumed by insecurity and ambition, plagued by inner strife and anger.
Nelson Mandela, the late first president of democratic South Africa, is credited with the relatively peaceful transition from apartheid rule.
Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images
There is never going to be a final assessment of Mandela’s legacy. How it is regarded will continue to change, depending on the destination South Africa travels to.
Hundreds of people stand in line to vote in South Africa’s first democratic election in April 1994.
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The proportional representation system has long outlived its relevance. Its negative extremes abound in local government.
Chris Hani (R) after being elected secretary general of the South African Communist Party in December 1991. To his left is the former secretary general Jo Slovo.
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The book is a gripping read for anyone interested in late 20th century history, and in the end of apartheid.
Frene Ginwala addressing the media in 2017, tireless in her fight for justice.
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A younger generation of feminists will remember her, above all, for her remarkable championing of the struggle against patriarchy.
African National Congress leader Oliver Tambo during his exile in Botswana.
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A historian counters the popular view that the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall set in motion talks to end apartheid. The process was unstoppable by then.
Loyalists of the ANC’s Radical Economic Transformation (RET) at the Olive Convention Centre in Durban.
Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images
Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.
Russia’s indiscriminate war in Ukraine has caused a large-scale humanitarian crisis.
EFE-EPA/Sergey Dolzhenko
Instead of drawing on the lessons of its own negotiated settlement and its rich history of peace-making in Africa, Pretoria chose to appease Russia.
Raymond Zondo, South Africa’s new chief justice.
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Zondo’s career is made up of a tapestry of highlights, from lawyer to senior judge. He has written more than 200 judgments.
Lindiwe Sisulu pledges to uphold the constitution before fomer Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng in 2014.
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The rule of law embodies the rallying cry for the fair and democratic exercise of public power, buttressed by law and fundamental rights.
Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former South African President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela after signing a peace pledge ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.
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This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902 to the July 2021 looting spree and violence.
Former South African President FW de Klerk photographed in Pretoria in 1989.
EPA-EFE/Walter Dlhadlha (AFP/via Getty Images), via
FW de Klerk as National Party conservative was paradoxically the right leader at the right time to relinquish white minority rule.
Many black South Africans live in appalling conditions with no running water or electricity 27 years into democracy.
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The new governing elite mistakenly believes that the goal of a democratic South Africa is simply to extend to everyone what whites enjoyed under apartheid.
Nelson Mandela at the commemoration of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in 1994.
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The suggestion that Mandela single-handedly achieved democracy is as intellectually threadbare as the charge that he was centrally responsible for the failure to transform South Africa.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court is considered the bedrock of the country’s democratic order. Here it is in session in 2019.
Photo by Alon Skuy/Sowetan/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The growing defence of South Africa’s beleaguered constitutional democracy is bolstered by African thinker Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book.
The rights entrenched in South Africa’s progressive constitution work for some, but not those living in abject poverty.
Whites lived well under apartheid and it is not absurd for black leaders to want all to live in the same way.
South Africa has seen a sharp rise in protests due to incompetence within its civil service.
EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma
Professionalism has to start with ministers for it to stand any chance of being embedded throughout the public service.
Human rights lawyer and anti-apartheid activist George Bizos at Freedom Park, Pretoria, in 2013.
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His appearance on behalf of the families of mine workers shot by the police at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry was just one of his efforts to seek justice for the poor and marginalised.