In one of his seminal speeches Martin Luther King Jnr warns society that “in the end, we will remember not the words (or noises) of our enemies, but the silences of our friends”. The ascendance of Mr Julius Malema to what is arguably the most powerful position to be held [...]
The ANC’s Polokwane Conference marked the beginning of in-ANC strife for the soul of the movement as the nexus of social, political and economic life in South Africa. It marked the beginning of a transition from a movement schooled in the principle of democratic centralism to a one that ‘must’ [...]
The notion of a nation-state has over the last decade undergone a process of rigorous review to an extent that society has now become complacent to discuss it as a base concept for political engagement and discourse. The preoccupation with the growing hegemony of dominant economies and established ‘nation-states’ as [...]
As a coffee lover and a person that has taught himself to manage the chronic South African sickness of seeing everything in black and white, I one day went through an interesting experience on this white and black thing. I was at a café somewhere in Tshwane (if Kallie Kriel [...]
In one of his seminal speeches Martin Luther King Jnr warns society that “in the end, we will remember not the words (or noises) of our enemies, but the silences of our friends. The ascendance of Mr Julius Malema to what is arguably the most powerful position to be held [...]
The 2011 local government elections have come and gone. The results have been released by what is arguably the most efficient elections management agency in the entire developing world, the IEC. Political analysts and statisticians are now grappling with the implications of the numbers and how these are reflective of [...]
The ANC’s cleansing ceremony at the Solomon Mahlangu Square in Mamelodi, supported by the Mahlangu family, raises fundamental questions about the liberation struggle legacy ownership. The gallantry and moral high ground that continues to characterise the South African liberation struggle has arguably made its legacy the most sought-after political asset [...]
The ANC was formed in 1912 as both a response to the exclusionary nature of the 1909 Convention that defined the borders of present day South Africa, and the rise of nationalism in Southern Africa. The founding fathers of the ANC sought to create a vehicle with which they would [...]
The terminological, conceptual and political breadth associated with the term ‘Boer’ as well as its multiple applications to mean different things to different people and political constituencies has evoked scorn and praise from a broad spectrum of South Africans. Whilst these interpretations are its strengths, in historical terms, it has [...]
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED FIRST BY THE THINKER: VOLUME 20 ;JUNE 2011 ISSUEThe use of metaphors and parables remains one of the greatest assets in the African education system. Supported by a rigorously used system of storytelling and use of symbols, metaphors have for centuries provided indigenous scholarship about and [...]
