If South Africans are to make the radical changes they must to become truly great, the new generation will have to find a way of understanding the country’s past in its profound complexity.
The 2016 State of the Nation Address provides President Zuma with the ideal opportunity to be statesman-like. That would require bold action of his part, something that he is unlikely to do.
Human population groups worldwide are highly homogeneous genetically. They are in fact 99.5% similar and their anatomical features vary in an uncorrelated fashion over the landscape.
South Africa’s transition into democracy involved compromises that left white privilege intact and black poverty undiminished. Here are a dozen of Mandela’s economic deals that need to be undone.
South African opposition politician Julius Malema has blamed economic policies put in place during Nelson Mandela’s era for the country’s high levels of inequality. He may have a point.
Judged by general citizen sentiment expressed at the grassroots, Jacob Zuma has failed to bring the ANC closer to the people. Research shows substantial alienation between the ANC and communities.
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.
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 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…
It’s there in black and white. Tinged, appropriately enough, with blue. On the inventory – handwritten in Afrikaans – of Mnr N Mandela’s personal Eiendom (property) on leaving Victor Verster prison outside…
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…
The issue of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission has generated much public debate and some apprehension…what this issue raises is how we deal with a past that contained gross violations of human rights…
South Africa is mourning the death of Nelson Mandela, a founding father like no other. His legacy includes a still-lauded constitution, four peaceful, free and fair democratic elections (five if 2014 follows…
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…
South Africa – and the world – has said its formal goodbye to Nelson Mandela. It was a celebration of a life gloriously lived, an event that united us as a global family. Earlier this year, I reflected…
A life magnificently lived in the service of humanity. This is why there is such a simultaneous outpouring of grief and celebration with the passing of Nelson Mandela, or Madiba. He has brought South Africa…
Professor of Public Theology in the Department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam