I’m absolutely amazed at Mosiuoa Lekota’s recent condemnation of a lack of democracy in the ruling African National Congress, as one of the major reasons for his leading role in the formation of the breakaway Congress of the People (Cope), which will contest the 2009 elections against the ANC. We needed a mass-based leftist alternative…
It is the unprecedented flux and ferment within the ruling ANC and its alliance partners that must encourage us to break new ground in our critical thinking and intellectual courage, tear into inflated egos, pull down the high and mighty from their pedestals and even take the bull by the horns. The recent robust debates…
When I looked at the wide variety of responses to Vincent Maher’s posting on the state of Thought Leader — in response to Dominic Tweedie’s criticisms of it on the Debate list serve last week — I decided that it would be best to write a piece that responds directly to his criticisms. This was…
The most unfortunate reality at this moment is that our collective fate and future is in the hands of just over 4 000 ANC delegates to next week’s Polokwane conference when the party is facing its worst internal crisis yet. Therefore, the key question we should all be asking is just how this conference can reach…
There can be little or no doubt that Ronald Suresh Roberts represents the kind of public intellectual this country does not only not need but must reject. And in this regard I put aside the many seemingly credible accusations against him of plagiarism presently. Some of Robert’s critics may have made the error — admittedly…
Circumstances prevented an earlier response to Ryland Fisher’s recent piece on racism — drawn from his book, Race. I am happy that he urges us to join in a conversation about race, a topic whose relevance has not diminished in post-apartheid South Africa, judging from media reports and articles. The major problem with his work…
Let there be no doubt, the future of our children is seriously at stake. A growing social crisis in our schools and townships has engulfed the youth, particularly teenagers. While this crisis has manifested itself in diverse forms in our society it is its wide-ranging negative effects in schools across the country that demands the…
My understanding is that this new online blogging site is not an elitist project but instead aims to engage with and draw into its conversations all readers of the paper and in fact more and more citizens of this country. This country urgently needs to develop many more strong, independent and critical thinkers, not only…
The “developmental state” is one of the most under-theorised aspects of national discourse. In fact we live in a country of mutating political mythologies we tend to be uncritically attracted to. For example, the “battle for the soul of the ANC” has been bandied about in the media for years when in reality the ANC’s…
The biggest political question hanging over all our heads at this critical moment in our history is that of Jacob Zuma. What will he do — or not — if and when he becomes the president; not so much of the ANC, but of the country? Cosatu and the SACP’s frenetic support for Zuma is…
