The colonial history that defined South Africa remains one of the permanent watermarks in any analysis of whatever democratic order it ultimately settles with. The structural foundations of its state formation process are a further background of permanence for any concert of reforms and reconceptualisations of all arguments defining democraticness [...]
The psychology of oppression is devastating, to say the least, to the oppressed. Steve Biko centred his understanding and explanation of oppression to the mind of the oppressed, concluding that the weapon in the hands of the oppressed to free themselves is to free their mind. It would seem that [...]
The 54th ANC National Conference in NASREC was not only watershed in its decisiveness to liquidate slate politics in favour of unity, but also about the introduction of a new ‘post-liberation’ order for South Africa. The ANC led liberation struggle narrative which remains instructional to most of the ANC’s ideational [...]
In the last few weeks South Africa has been experiencing an episode that threatens to redefine the ANC from its earned status as a leader of society, to a eremite institution characterised by corruption and factionalism. The State Capture Commission has become a new theatre within which scenes, acts and [...]
African Nationalist movements have created modern day African states, and citizens of these states are in one way or the other turning against these movements, or what they have turned out to represent. In creating these states the movements etched their state formation paradigms on a nationalist outlook restrained by [...]
South Africa has been experiencing a series of tensions that may be eating on its social fabric. This is due to the continued use of demeaning vocabulary aimed at a section of its people that were called ‘kaffirs’. Whilst the use of ‘kaffir’ is an abhorrence to humanity, it would [...]
A BEQUEATHED FREEDOM CHARTER AS THE SOUL OF THE NATION The cohesion of a nation is always found in what is defined as its soul. Successful nations and democracies were and still are able to weather most storms as a result of their reliance on what defines them, rather [...]
THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS AND NATION BUILDING The African National Congress, arguably one of the key nexus of a nation-building assignment for South Africa, has over its history been at considerable pains to define a national vision acceptable to all. The general moral high ground it occupies or rather occupied, [...]
The political institutions, policies and mechanisms for reshaping a better nation can be conceptualised. The more challenging issue is embedding the right attitudes about the socio-political structure of those charged with the task. All socio-political, cultural and economic revolutions and evolutions require a set of congruent attitudes if they are [...]
Over the last decade, the debate on Black Economic Empowerment has been receiving heightened attention in respect of its impact, value, and contribution to the transformation and/or otherwise of the South African economy. Most analyses of BEE examine the interests and behaviour of the ‘power holders’, ‘the empowering agents’, and [...]
