The leaderlessness of South Africa’s #FeesMustFall student movement has ultimately fed into divisions within the grouping.
Mahatma Gandhi figurine at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Vienna.The call to remove his statute from the University of Ghana has reignited debate about his legacy.
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Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential personalities in history, celebrated for his advocacy of non-violent resistance. But his dark side is now receiving increased attention.
Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994 with a promise to redress historical in equalities in South Africa.
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South African universities are aflame as student protests for free education turn violent. But, would a non-violent approach, as preached by Martin Luther King, be more effective in their cause?
South Africa isn’t the “rainbow nation” some claim it to be.
Thomas Mukoya/Reuters
Once again South Africa is facing the challenge of a compromised relationship between the state and the church. Is Nelson Mandela inadvertently responsible?
Sol Plaatje never stopped learning, nor teaching.
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Universities are so busy trying to make ends meet that there’s no time to listen to their communities’ stories. It’s crucial to develop safe spaces where tough conversations can happen.
Artisans are crucial for any economy.
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For a global audience, the movie ‘A United Kingdom’ provides a topical account of race relations. The love story is likely to revitalize the popular viewpoint of Botswana as a national success story.
Sian Tiley-Nel, chief curator, University of Pretoria Museums
Sometimes album sleeves reveal little about the music. Instead they illuminate the society it came from, exposing unexpected stories of people, art forms and struggles.
The apartheid government built universities for black students far from major cities or safe routes.
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The system of apartheid is long gone. But its legacy of poor funding for historically black universities - and of planning that banished black universities to cities’ margins - remains.
One of two benches demarcated apartheid style for either ‘whites only’ or for ‘non-whites only’ in Cape Town.
Esa Alexander/Sunday Times
September is celebrated as heritage month in South Africa. How to get it right? A revisit to a national newspaper’s decade-old, ambitious project is a good yardstick to use.
Dumile Feni’s ‘African Guernica’ - charcoal on paper.
Susan Williams, School of Advanced Study, University of London
The Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb in 1949, to the profound shock of the US. This heated up the Cold War dramatically and thrust the Congo to the centre of American geopolitical strategy
South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks, block a street during an operation.
Independent Media/Picture:Bhekikhaya Mabaso
The main criticism leveled at the body that oversees the work of South Africa’s elite police unit, the Hawks, is that it lacks the power to initiate investigations, making it ineffective.
Author Christine Qunta says forgiveness trumps justice in South Africa.
Elelwani Netshifhire
Qunta advocates a reparations fund to accelerate corrective policies, that schools be freed from colonial indoctrination and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.
Family murder was understood as a sign of larger ills.
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During the 1980s, press coverage of South African family murders suggested that something was ‘wrong’ with white society – and with the white Afrikaans men who were usually seen as perpetrators.