Recent political events suggest that South Africa is at a crossroad where it could either be tipped into a fully corrupted state or saved by multi-party plurality
Sol Plaatje never stopped learning, nor teaching.
Flowcomm/Flickr
How did Sol Plaatje, a man with only four years of formal schooling, become one of South Africa’s most brilliant and committed public educators?
Sol Plaatje at his writing desk taken from his book Native Life in South Africa.
Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand A979 Fca3.
The centennial publication of Sol Plaatje’s seminal, ‘Native Life’ is a timely reminder of his estimation of intellectual work, in contrast to the current disparagement of ‘clever blacks’.
Nelson Mandela, accompanied by his wife Winnie, walks out of the Victor Verster prison on February 11, 1990.
Ulli Michel/Reuters
The foundation founded by Nelson Mandela in 1999 has done a major revision - it has written off most of his reign as comprising “grand symbolic gestures”.
South African President Nelson Mandela forged a powerful cabinet of national unity.
Reuters
South Africa’s ruling party has lost its moral and intellectual capacity to claim the mantle of leadership. The country’s economy won’t recover unless new political alignments emerge.
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan. He left the job after concerted political attacks.
Reuters/Shailesh Andrade
Attacks on the South African Reserve Bank and events in India that led to the exit of the governor of the country’s central bank are a warning that banks aren’t immune from political meddling.
Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk played a critical role in the making of the 1994 political transition in South Africa.
Reuters
MK, the army of the then banned ANC, electrified millions of oppressed people to rise against the apartheid regime. Today, its veterans are being used in factional battles within the ruling party.
President Jacob Zuma is accused of using the Hawks to target his finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.
GCIS/Flickr
The battle between South Africa’s finance minister Pravin Gordhan and the country’s elite police unit is once more grabbing headlines. What are the points of law around the matter?
A supporter arrives at an ANC rally in July 2016 addressed by President Jacob Zuma.
Cornell Tukiri/EPA
In this new world where its lost thousands of votes does South Africa’s ruling ANC know who it is, how to be in opposition, or how it might fight its way back to winning ways?
Herman Mashaba, businessman and member of the Democratic Alliance, now mayor of Johannesburg.
Jurgen Marx
Business people who become politicians can bring fresh energy into the public service. They come from an ecosystem that is driven by urgency to produce measurable results.
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.
The Democratic Alliance’s Herman Mashaba celebrates victory as Johannesburg’s new mayor after the ANC’s defeat.
The Star/Boxer Ngwenya
South Africa’s watershed local elections have resulted in upsets for the ANC in key metropoles. But will the new, minority coalition regimes live up to their mandate of providing basic services?
Protesters decry the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation not to air scenes of violent protest.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
There were high hopes that the SABC would become a true public broadcaster after the end of apartheid when it was used ruthlessly as a propaganda machine. But those hopes have since been dashed.
EFF leaders Godrich Gardee, left, Julius Malema and Floyd Shivamvu brief journalists in Alexandra, near Johannesburg.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The ghost of ‘Khwezi’ – the woman who accused Jacob Zuma of rape in 2006 – continues to haunt him, just as the spectre of rape continues to haunt South Africa.
President Jacob Zuma, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and former anti-apartheid activist Sophie de Bruyn at the unveiling of a monument to the 1956 women’s march.
GCIS
South Africa’s past tells us that, under certain conditions, women mobilise in ways that produce significant political results. But the country’s present shows how easily these gains can evaporate.
Is the ANC now just another box on the ballot?
EPA/Kevin Sutherland
Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State