Goons attempt to disrupt protest for press freedom
The saga of the Cape Times and South Africa’s Independent Newspapers (INL) group plumbed new depths of farce this afternoon (December 17) when a rent-a-crowd arrived in the city to support the putative new owner, Iqbal Survé.
Terry Bell
News | 17 December 2013
Mandela and the dangers of deification
As everyone from monarchs to the labouring masses this week sought to share in the Mandela memorial moment, the myth machine went into overdrive, the very machine Mandela had so disparaged when I sat with him in his Johannesburg office in 1992. One sentence he uttered then has resonated with me throughout the years: “I am no messiah.”
Terry Bell
Opinion | 17 December 2013
When the ANC jeered Madiba
Do any of the members of the ANC's 1997-2002 NEC now regret the way they heckled and jeered Madiba at an NEC meeting in March 2002?
Roy Jobson
Opinion | 12 December 2013
Week in political activism
This week we have reports from Lawyers for Human Rights about refugees being prevented from informal trading, and SERI who successfully represented Johannesburg's informal traders at the Constitutional Court.
Compiled by Brent Meersman
News | 12 December 2013
Unity after Madiba?
After the departure of Nelson Mandela, where is this unity we talk about? On the day of Tata's memorial the world was watching. It was a day where South Africans from different backgrounds, through the rain, walked, drove, took buses, trains and taxis to Soccer City to witness the memorial of an African hero.
Axolile Notywala
Opinion | 12 December 2013
Hatched the day before Madiba’s release: a born-free speaks
I was born the day before Madiba's release from prison. Most of what I know about him I was told by my parents or I learnt at school. I never met him. Nevertheless, the way he shared his life made it feel as if I knew him personally.
Nwabisa Pondoyi
Opinion | 12 December 2013
If the boo fits …
In his 2004 Nelson Mandela lecture Desmond Tutu bravely suggested that an “uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity” constituted a threat to democracy in South Africa. He said that “too many are foolhardy and opt for silence to become voting cattle for the party.”
Doron Isaacs
Opinion | 12 December 2013
Humbug Dr Survè
Iqbal Survè, whose company Sekunjalo now owns Independent Newspapers, is not merely a profoundly disingenuous man. He has shown that he's willing to use his newly acquired media empire to support his disingenuity.
Nathan Geffen, GroundUp Editor
Opinion | 11 December 2013