Thought Leader

Do white people have a future in South Africa? According John Simpson, the world affairs editor of BBC News: Yes, there is a future for the prosperous white middle class and the upper-class whites (who remain shaded from poverty by their apartheid booty). This is not the case for the poor whites and white farmers….

The DA has recently launched a poster campaign entitled “Know Your DA”. It attempts, I think, to bring to light the “untold” role that some of their founding members played in the fight against apartheid. Typical of South African politics, supporters of opposition parties countered these claims with a series of spoof posters, intent on revealing…

By Roshila Jarosz At around 12.20pm last Wednesday afternoon I was stunned. Actually, for a brief moment I thought my ears were deceiving me, then I realised there was no such luck. In part it was my fault — I was listening to student radio station Tuks FM (what’s an alternative rock girl to do?)….

By Zipho Shusha There has been a clash among the ANC top brass concerning Trevor Manuel’s utterances. Manuel said it was time for the government to take responsibility for its actions. “We [government] should no longer say it’s apartheid’s fault.” He further said that “we should get up every morning and recognise we have responsibility….

By Athambile Masola As a product of a Eurocentric, former white educational institution, I was once very quick to embrace non-racialism (that race should no longer be used as a marker to understand our experiences). I’ve been living in Cape Town for over a year and have come face to face with the politics of…

Ben Ngubane – till recently the chairperson of the perpetually dysfunctional SABC board – was appointed as the first minister of arts, culture, science and technology after the historic 1994 elections. It was a euphoric time for the arts sector. The right to freedom of creative expression was guaranteed in the interim Constitution. Apartheid’s censorship…

The oldest liberation movement on the continent, the African National Congress, is facing a crisis of great magnitude. Not only are there power struggles within the organisation but a sense of resignation towards the organisation in broader society. The masses have evolved from a state of defeatism — induced by the post-1994 euphoria — to…

By Siphokazi Magadla Saggy pants is a popular form of displaying rebellion to teenage respectability by young men who wear their trousers far down their waists, often times generously exposing their underwear. Saggy pants are mostly associated with black male masculinity, which has been highlighted by the imagery often associated with mainstream hip-hop culture. Of…

For ages, the country today known as South Africa was no more than a loose band of separate communities. The Nguni tribes, which settled on the Southern tip of Africa around the 10th century, neither considered themselves a single nation, nor did they consider the Khoisan people already inhibiting the area part of their collective….

On March 1 we watched in disbelief and horror as a young Mozambican man, Mido Macia, was forcibly handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged behind the vehicle as he cried out for them to stop. When the car eventually arrived at the police station eyewitnesses say he was further beaten by…