Published in the Sunday Times on 08 October 2023In his editorial of 01 October 2023, Sunday Times editor Sthembiso Msomi submits that it feels like the government has given up on recovery. He 'laments' that since 2007 "building a capable state has been a popular phrase...yet on close examination, the [...]
We seldom meet people who make an indelible mark in our very lives that we realise after they have departed this world how big a gap they filled. As we grow up, we meet and designate titles to people we encounter. Some we are born into defined relationships with them, and [...]
The South African liberation struggle for a democratic order has the country's Constitution as the legal document defining the end and arguably success of the struggle. The 1996 Constitution is the basis upon which the Republic of South Africa is considered one sovereign and democratic state. Constitutionalism seems to be [...]
A casual read of 'mainstream' in-ANC social media conversations amongst 'comrades' reflects a managed discontent at the decision by President Ramaphosa to give Prince Buthelezi a category one state funeral. In a veiled show of this discontent, the leader of the ANC Veterans League, Dr Snuki Zikalala, interrogates the category [...]
The death of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has triggered not only the battle for the pivot of Zulu cultural and political life, the position of the Kingdom's Premiership but also a battle for a potentially politically stranded KwaZulu-Natal abaNTU vote. The speeches at uMtwana's memorial service, which in many ways assumed [...]
The (untimely) death of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been received with mixed emotions by South Africans from all walks of life. There have been varieties of political grandstanding, ranging from outright disparaging remarks about his life to remarks about him having been one of the most outstanding leaders of South Africa. [...]
Yes, death is a mighty and universal truth. When it strikes, an array of virtues rise in mercy, compassion, memory, legacy, and love. Of every tear that we, the sorrowing mortals, shed on graves such as that awaits many of those we consider our leaders, some good might be born [...]
After the Mandela-led Constituent Assembly adopted the 1996 Constitution, the ideal of a non-racial, non-sexist, united, and democratic South Africa looked set to define a new nationhood. The racial and equality tensions that characterised society seemed to have melted into the liberation promise the Constitution guaranteed all citizens. After centuries [...]
Leadership is the art of being followed and revered for what your last performance was about. When society invokes your past to impose it to your present, there is something about your present that does not inspire confidence to face a future with you as a leader. Capturing the imagination [...]
The thought of possible coalition governing arrangements by the 'liberation party' (the ANC), the implicit support by South Africa's civil society and other political parties, and the endorsement of the process by the economic establishment is a good sign about the health of our democracy. This might be the clearest [...]
