South Africans are caught between forgiving violence because we understand that the divides in our society are unsustainable, and abhorring violence because we fear that ours will be the next throats to be slit. Some people are born empathetic. I was not. I never cried for the losses of strangers until I became a mother. …
The substance of the Seriti Commission is important. But those of us who watched a remarkable moment of grace yesterday when Advocate Hoffman was overcome with grief will have been reminded of why this country is so special. "Engrave this upon your heart: there isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you heard their story." –Mary …
Ramphele’s assumption that she will be accepted into civil society, where she can continue her project of ‘active citizenship’ without having to be directly accountable to a real live constituency, speaks volumes. The good doctor is not wrong in this regard. Sadly, many civil society groups will accept her because the sector is not yet …
The phrase "women’s health" slips off the tongues of clinicians, public health experts, community advocates and legislators with ease, but the ideological battles of the past three decades have clouded this once-useful term. Reproductive health services and access to family planning promote health and combat poverty, but they do not represent the sum of women’s …
The real critique of last night’s SONA is not that it was boring, it is that the speech was boring on purpose because it sought to depoliticise meaningful things and subsume them under the rubric of “fast-tracked implementation” “stakeholder engagement,” and “delivery mechanisms.” In other words, Zuma deliberately deployed technical language that alienates people to …