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, […]