The Randlords left a big dilemma in their wake: contemporary South Africa is not sure whether to thank them for bringing civilisation, or to curse them for complicating future race relations.
Martin Luther King’s legacy must be contextualised within a larger global struggle against racism and hatred. Africans should revisit the values he espoused and continue with the anti-racism crusade.
The central thrust of Haffajee’s book is compelling. It argues that black South Africans, especially the new generation of young, black ‘born frees’ are obsessed with whiteness and white privilege.
Architects and those working on the built environment can learn valuable lessons about their discipline – how it’s taught, and how it’s carried out – from the 2015 student protests.
Despite science refuting the existence of different human races, people have used “race” throughout history to divide and denigrate certain people while promoting their claims of superiority.
South Africa’s rugby administrators are facing increased criticism for their failure to shed its white image. The tone of the debate is different this time, amid growing protests against inequality.
Over the past two decades, it has not been easy for any country – let alone a newly freed one, like post-apartheid South Africa – to understand the rapidly changing world.
Deborah James, London School of Economics and Political Science
In the global South, where some argue that “everyone is now middle class”, people are reluctant to acknowledge that they need to borrow money – and the stigma drives them to dodge their debts.
Since the 1940s, it’s been common for political moderates to move to the fore in South Africa – then, intermittently, to the background. They are replaced by radicals or exclusivist nationalists.
The egalitarian society envisioned by political activists and thinkers Rick Turner and Steve Biko has not been realised. But, they continue to inspire critiques of post-apartheid South Africa.
Vocational training is regarded as “low status” in South Africa. Much of the negativity around technical and vocational work seems to lie in the country’s history.
The impact that the system of conscription had on the roughly 600,000 white men who became both pawns and agents of the apartheid state has seldom been publicly acknowledged.
There’s a fierce debate underway about changing university curricula in Africa and the UK to be less Eurocentric. Three academics offer their suggestions for a decolonised reading list.
The Freedom Charter, adopted at a meeting in Soweto on June 25-26 1955, triggered a paradigm shift in thinking about the democratic rights of black South Africans and their protection under the law.
Liberalism is a dirty word for the majority of South Africans. This goes back to early colonialism. Liberals opposed apartheid but not the close relationship between capitalism and apartheid.