History Matters

The temptation to deploy identity politics is always tempting, but should be resisted, writes Mamphela Ramphele May 29, 2011 Sunday Times The contest for power in the run-up to the May 18 local elections raised a very sensitive issue of the ownership of national symbols, including former president Nelson Mandela. I had hoped that the [...]

by Ferial Haffajee news24 The first reason it lost the coloured and Indian vote is that the ANC sees it as a coloured and Indian vote – when it didn’t, the ANC was much more successful in these former strongholds. I’m black, as defined by Steve Biko, but apartheid meant that I spent my childhood [...]

By Dr. Saleem Badat Reflection on how far we have come requires us to clarify our notions of ‘subject’ and ‘citizen’ and subjecthood and citizenship. First, as with notions such as democracy and development, there are ‘thick’ and ‘thin’, notions of citizenship – notions that reduce citizenship to the formal, legal and primarily political dimensions [...]

NEVA MAKGETLA business day 07/07/2010 MEDIA reports of xenophobic threats have become commonplace. After the horrors of the last wave of attacks in 2008 that left more than 60 people dead, one would expect a more vigorous response from across society. Local mobilisation has been the key to preventing this kind of attack. But there [...]

We lack a unifying national identity, but there is a way forward, writes Ivor Chipkin May 10, 2010 11:49 PM | By Ivor Chipkin. Time live The Big Read:There is renewed interest in the question of whether “South Africans” exist. Both the Helen Suzman Foundation and the Gordon Institute for Business Science have recently made [...]

by Omar Badsha and Jon Soske During the latter half of 2010, a series of events commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the first Indian indentured laborers in Natal will take place across South Africa. The preparations have already inspired wide-spread debate; individuals from a variety of communities and political perspectives have raised similar questions: to [...]

– By Bennie Bunsee The Indian Question in South Africa is part of the National Question in the country whose principal political task post apartheid is nation-building based on racial and social harmony and overcoming the racial fragmentation in what is both an African and multi-racial society and respecting the diversity of cultures and languages [...]

The Times – 8 September 2009 Yusuf Dadoo’s legacy is our tradition of non-racialism, writes Yunus Momoniat AT A conference last week, delegates mulled over the legacy of Yusuf Dadoo, a leader of the Transvaal Indian Congress, a communist leader and respected activist. The key theme of the conference was the question of non-racialism and [...]

Mac Maharaj: In Confidence Published:Jul 11, 2009 Sunday Times What is worrying today is the heightening race consciousness and dissatisfaction. There seems to be increasing racial polarisation July 18 — the 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela — marks the first international Mandela Day as an occasion when each of us takes a step, through some [...]