Thought Leader

From Neil Pretorius Dear Verashni, As an avid Mail & Guardian reader, and as one who has on many an occasion appreciated the wit of some of your past opinion pieces, I feel somewhat dismayed at having to write this open letter to you. You state that Lindiwe Mazibuko is not the role model that…

Once upon a time before apartheid, around 200-million years ago during what is known as the Early Jurassic epoch, there lived a number of dinosaurs known as Massospondylus. How do we know this? Simple, there is a group of scientists known as palaeontologists, who make wine connoisseurs look like humble citizens, and they said so,…

By Amukelani Mayimele As a young woman determined to fight an unjust system that worked against the poor I joined South African Students Congress (Sasco) during my first year at university. The number of people we helped each year did not represent half of the people who needed the help. We spent the rest of…

This week a 35-year-old South African drug trafficker, Janice Linden, was executed in China by lethal injection. That China should dare apply its own laws on its own territory has unleashed in South Africa a whirlwind of misplaced outrage and platitudinous sanctimony. The Inkatha Freedom Party termed the execution ‘unfortunate’ — which it undoubtedly was…

There has been a good deal of talk on the significance of Lindiwe Mazibuko’s election to the top job in parliamentary opposition. Much of the celebration concerns what the event signals for the future; the potential for the Democratic Alliance (DA) to attract young black voters. In fact, in the minds of many, it is…

The simple answer is, no. I’ve attempted to answer this question once before, in 2009. My argument at the time was that South Africa had a strong Constitution, which ensured the country stayed on democratic course. Unlike Zimbabwe, post-apartheid South Africa has endeavoured to consolidate democracy by empowering independent institutions such as the judiciary. Soon…