South African President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation speech will be followed by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s Budget speech next week on February 22. They represent the country’s two main warring political blocs: patronage versus prudence. But after the “radical economic transformation” rhetoric was ratcheted up by the president, both men may soon stumble on a terrain potholed by what a Donald Trump aide approvingly terms “alternative facts”.

Zuma at least did include a belated definition of what he means by radical economic transformation:

Research findings show poor education that hinders young people is a central source of inequality in SA, write Murray Leibbrandt and Pippa Green.

Late in 2016, on the same day the ANC leadership met in Irene near Pretoria to discuss the future of its president, senior policymakers met some of the country’s top economic researchers just down the road to examine the social crises that threaten the fundamentals of South African democracy: poverty, unemployment and inequality.

There is a general debasement of politics in much of the world. Figures such as Trump in the US, Modi in India, Dos Santos in Angola and Erdogan in Turkey (not forgetting Berlusconi in Italy not too long ago) have become some of the proper names by which this trajectory is often known. South Africa is no exception. Although the debasement of our politics exceeds Zuma his name has come to stand for a certain kind of political decline.

The two Fallist movements to date at UCT have addressed colonial symbols and fees. Both of these issues could be solved easily – remove all symbols and charge no fees. Don’t hold your breath on this. People will always have heroes and it’s crazy not to use fees generated from wealthy students to subsidize the poorest-of-the-poor.

The real mammoth in the room at UCT that no one seems to be addressing coherently is “decolonization” in all its guises. Until it is defined and implemented, there will be no peace at UCT.

MATRIC RESULTS AN INDICATOR OF PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION IN CRISIS!

The Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill before Parliament is dangerous and desperate. It poses a direct threat to the basic rights of the poorest South Africans — the 18-million people living in former homeland areas, where the law would apply — in that it seeks to legalise a version of unilateral chiefly authority that Parliament and the Constitutional Court have rejected.

Many academics, including myself, have explored why free higher education is not economically viable in South Africa.

Money is not the only issue, though. Quality also matters. And the two go hand in hand. Students have hastened to conflate free education and access to quality education. But introducing free university education will not magically grant students access to quality education, nor employment in the marketplace. There’s a lot of work to be done to achieve this. And in my view this should take precedence over doing away with university fees.

The election of Barack Obama marked the emergence of the Tea Party, a radical right-wing movement that challenged the Republican establishment and ultimately fueled the rise of Donald Trump.

Where did the Tea Party come from? That’s the question renowned sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild set out to explore in her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

Africa is likely to slide down the list of foreign policy priorities of a Donald Trump administration. This is because America’s foreign policy is determined by both domestic and foreign issues.

Professor Drucilla Cornell, Co-founder of the African Institute for Global Social Thought

Professor Mabogo More, Co-founder of the African Institute for Global Social Thought

Professor Sampie Terreblanche, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Stellenbosch University