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.
In South Africa’s segregated pre-apartheid state, even sex education was racialised. Christian missionaries had very different lessons for black and white children.
The release of Eugene de Kock, former commander of the notorious Vlakplaas counterinsurgency unit responsible for numerous clandestine assassinations in apartheid South Africa, raises a number of critical…
The beginning of the academic year in South Africa is the most stressful time for parents of children who come from poor, rural and working class backgrounds. This when they have to confront the difficult…
At different times ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, various politicians called for politics to be kept out of the event. This didn’t prevent the organisers paying tribute to Glasgow’s part in the…
Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa 20 years ago, pass rates in the country’s end-of-school exam – commonly known as the matric – have been steadily on the rise, despite indications that the schooling…
As South Africa, in election week, watches the trial of Oscar Pistorius for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, my perception is that our society is experiencing an overall paroxysm of social…
The timing could not have been more poignant: as South African president Jacob Zuma announced to the world that Nelson Mandela, the father of his nation, had breathed his last, Mandela’s daughters, Zenani…
South Africa is not the most comfortable country to live in. Unemployment levels dwarf those in the troubled economies of Europe. The unemployed survive because families redistribute income internally…
Many fine words of tribute were uttered as some of the world’s most powerful people gather to pay tribute to former President Nelson Mandela. In spite of the rain, thousands gathered to hear the tributes…
It is as the iconic figure of the struggle to end the repugnant system of apartheid that Nelson Mandela will be most simply, fondly and longest remembered. What type of society South Africa has become…
How do you say goodbye to a global icon? The answer must be: with dignity and by being true to the values that he fought for. By these standards, we all have done Nelson Mandela a disservice. The international…