South African expat Nitanja Steyn has lived in the Netherlands, the US and Germany since leaving SA in 2014. But no matter where she lives… her heart belongs back home in South Africa. Yesterday she penned a poignant poem ‘Die Verlanging van ‘n Suid-Afrikaner’, in Afrikaans (see below). Here she has kindly translated it into […]

There are many things for which I wish I could take up a national podium and make a public service announcement (PSA) to white South Africans. But since I do not have that as yet, let me just put it in writing… writes Lovelyn Nwadeyi, founder and director of L & N Advisors. PSA 1: […]

We consume the products of slavery every day. All of us. Today’s globalised supply chains make it is almost impossible to avoid goods or services free of the fingerprints of slavery. Electronic gadgets, clothing, fish, cocoa and cane sugar are the products mostly likely to be tainted. In contrast to state-sanctioned slave ownership in the […]

A recent online video took what seemed like an inspirational moment viral. The video, shot by Dmitry Kedrov using a drone, shows a baby bear climbing up and falling down the side of a mountain near Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk. After repeated efforts, the cub finally reaches the top, joining his mother and winning the […]

For my Sister, on the day she immigrates… writes Jessica Galloway. I want you to know that it’s hard and heavy some days. All the skype sessions in the world cannot come close to mom’s chocolate brownies… I want you to know that the hard days wont last forever. But they need to be lived. Leaving […]

The brilliantly talented, insightful and always frank Viv Vermaak has perfectly summed up the feelings of so many people in South Africa (and the world) who suffer from anxiety and depression. Responding to Viv’s words, posted Tuesday morning, one parent said “you wrote this today for my daughter, who is very dear to my heart. Thank […]

Whataboutery is the art, in debate and dialogue, of evading a question by deflecting attention to an issue of supposedly equal or greater significance… writes Gus Silber. It is the easiest and cheapest of rhetorical tactics, dating all the way back to the schoolyard – “I know I am, but what are you?” – which […]

Forgive the political tone – I am trying to keep it in check, but I fail… writes South African musician Albert Combrink. Dear Friends, I love you dearly. But I just CAN’T with all this negativity about South Africa all the time. When I look at the quality of your lives, and the quality of […]

This is a conversation that I have been having with clients for many years, but it is now becoming more and more prevalent in their lives… writes financial consultant Marc Sydow. To leave SA or not? It has also become quite a hot topic around the dinner table, it’s almost like we feel the need […]

Dear (Some) White South Africans THERE IS NO WHITE GENOCIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA! There is only a race of people who believe the murders of ‘their people’ should be given more attention than the murders of other races. White people need to please understand that most black people don’t hate them; we just hate their […]

I usually blog about life here in South Africa, but I’ve had roughly a kabillion Saffas contact me to ask what they can expect when they move from South Africa to Canada… writes Phil Maloney. I’m inherently very lazy by nature, so I’m writing this post simply so I don’t have to keep answering the […]

Why does South Africa not fall off the precipice? Economists are clear that if this economy does not grow soon, the prospects of new jobs are dismal and rising unemployment will be our fate… writes Prof Jonathan Jansen. Educationists are clear that if the decline in education quality and the high drop-out rates continue, schools […]

My Dad is my real hero because he is the most special person in my life. He’s a very good athlete and an artist. He is a Corporal in the Army and sometimes he is away from us for 6 to 8 months, but we talk to each other every day… And at weekends when […]

When Free Speech is counter-attacked by intense scrutiny, intimidations and death threats because of unpopular views, we should all be concerned as that’s not how Constitutional democracy operates, write Neo Nino Mofokeng. Shashi Naidoo is yet another high profile South African who has been scrutinised, viciously attacked by the popular left and in the extreme, […]

As South Africa marked Youth Day on Saturday 16 June 2018, Sophia Kapp – an author and language practitioner from Pretoria – wrote the following moving message for Hector Pieterson, the 12-year-old boy who was fatally wounded during the Soweto Riots 42 years ago, and whose image was immortalised in the iconic photo by the […]

Respected South African academic and author Jacklyn Cock’s deep love for the Kowie river is the key thread that runs throughout her new book, “Writing the Ancestral River”. The 94 kilometre long river snakes through South Africa’s Eastern Cape province and flows into the Indian Ocean at the small town of Port Alfred. Part of […]

In the backdrop of extensive media coverage of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel – commemorated by Palestinians as the naqba (catastrophe) – it’s important that the 70th anniversary of South Africa’s own tragedy should not pass unnoticed. That is the election of May 1948 which brought the National Party […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa is unquestionably a great negotiator who knows precisely what to say and when to say it… writes Chris Moerdyk. So it is a mystery to me why he and his cabinet team have allowed so much fake news and misinformation to do the rounds without any significant reaction. Take the land issue, […]