From a perusal of social media and certain sections of the commentariat (on both the Left and Right) one wouldn’t know that an intelligent South African electorate just handed the ANC a convincing victory in an overwhelming peaceful, free, fair and democratic election.
Gilad Isaacs
Opinion | 14 May 2014
Delphine Pedeboy interned with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) earlier this year. It was a frustrating experience, for her but even more so for the refugees she dealt with.
Delphine Pedeboy
Opinion | 13 May 2014
Some of my friends from university say that they are not going to vote because they do not see what difference the vote will make. They say politicians are corrupt.
Pharie Sefali
Opinion | 7 May 2014
I was born into a new South Africa. At a time when the promise of a country, free from any prejudice, was enough to win the majority vote during the first democratic elections.
Barbara Maregele
Opinion | 7 May 2014
“The Central African Republic stands on the brink of genocide; some would say it has already commenced,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in April.
Shireen Mukadam
Opinion | 5 May 2014
Never one to disguise her spleen Rhoda Kadalie takes issue with what she alleges is “my temerity to lead the electorate astray”. What Kadalie is taking issue with, but conceals, is I am no lone voice but in partnership with numerous others, of note, in a campaign which calls on all registered voters not to abstain but use their vote on 7 May.
Ronnie Kasrils
Opinion | 1 May 2014
While celebrations took place all over the country this week, some young people in Cape Town’s townships chose to spend Freedom Day another way.
Pharie Sefali
Opinion | 30 April 2014
The stories told by the mothers of three children with disabilities at a series of workshops at the Consitutional Court underline the contrast between constitutional rights and the grim reality.
Muhammad Zakaria Suleman and Tim Fish Hodgson
Opinion | 29 April 2014
The call to deploy the army was heard in response to recent gang violence in Manenberg. But that’s not the solution, argues Adam Armstrong.
Adam Armstrong
Opinion | 29 April 2014
The ongoing and increasingly bitter row within Cosatu boils down, basically, to a constitutional clash.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 29 April 2014
While the Marikana hearings drift through the doldrums in Rustenberg, at Khayelitsha’s Lookout Hill another commission into police failings is cautiously gathering momentum. The O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry is a timely and consolatory reminder of the judicial efficiency South Africa is capable of.
Richard Conyngham
Opinion | 22 April 2014
We are in the midst of all the usual fanfare, the pledges, promises, rows and contradictions that accompany any run-up to a major election. But the scheduled national poll on 7 May seems to be beset by more bickering, bitterness and fragmentation than normal — and this is a clear portent for the future.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 22 April 2014
Nearly two decades into our democracy, for most people living in South Africa our Constitution might as well be written in Latin, because it is more than likely that they have never read it.
Tim Fish Hodgson and Tawana Nharingo
Opinion | 17 April 2014
At a meeting on 12 April convened by Ikasi Pride, members of a divided gay and lesbian community discussed the future of gay pride in the city, its steady depoliticisation, its lack of community outreach and its image problem.
Brent Meersman
Opinion | 15 April 2014
On April Fool’s day, GroundUp published a story which claimed that government had made it compulsory for teacher graduates to provide their services in non-model C government schools for one year.
Joshua Maserow
Opinion | 15 April 2014
Farm employer organisation AgriSA last week met with trade union representatives in an effort to strike a deal to allow unionisation on farms — and especially in the winelands of the Western Cape. “Most farmers still will not allow union representatives onto their properties,” says Federation of Unions (Fedusa) general secretary Dennis George.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 14 April 2014