Posted inEqualityNews/Politics

Stop invoking Mandela’s legacy to advocate respectability

Recently, I saw a Facebook post about an event where the keynote speech was titled “What would Mandela do?” The speech, unsurprisingly, criticised the recent student protests. For the love of intellectual discourse, can we please retire this phrase? Don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing but respect and admiration — and gratitude — for Nelson […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Saying farewell to a legend

It is difficult to come to terms with the news that the world’s most revered statesman and human-rights activist is gone. As is so often said, he now belongs to the ages. Although an old man, he seemed immortal. But Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a man, a man whose dedication to the struggle against apartheid […]

Posted inNews/Politics

The Mandela cult

“Happy is the country that has no history” is a proverb attributed to the French philosopher Montesquieu. In 1994, South Africa — up until then a synonym for backwardness and brutality — was reborn as a democracy. A new epoch dawned. A promised land beckoned. And the man who had come to embody that hope […]

Posted inEqualityNews/Politics

Mandela – what lies beneath?

By Sipho Singiswa It may be hard for many to gracefully accept or admit, as has been an African tradition, that when Madiba has decided he is ready to go meet his ancestors or when they call him, only he will know when best to go. I am writing in response to all the liberal […]