19 July 2021 - In his speech on Monday last week (12th July), Cyril Ramaphosa reminded us twice that he was commander-in-chief of the defence force. But by the time he had been persuaded to increase the number of troops deployed against the mayhem in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng from 2 500 to 25 000, local communities had already mounted their own defences.
Media
Every week we reach hundreds of thousands of people through placing arguments in the media in support of the principles we stand for. No other advocacy group in the country does as much as we do to promote support for policies that defend your right, and that of your community, to make decisions about your own life free from counter-productive government interference.
Three proposals to #SaveTheEconomy
19 July 2021 - Last week, the Institute of Race Relations launched a campaign to #SaveTheEconomy. Through its Racism Is NOT The Problem initiative, the IRR sent letters to politicians and the CEOs of banks to obtain their backing in reviving the economy.
18 July 2021 - The sheer scale of the pillage is hard to absorb, dwarfing as it does the vast costs of last week’s mayhem.
18 July 2021 - It is the grandchildren of Edgar Brookes, a founder and president of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), who dishonour their grandfather’s proud legacy in their rancorous mischaracterisation of the IRR’s present-day position (“IRR not continuing the legacy of its founders”, July 14).
16 July 2021 - The call by business leaders for a 24-hour curfew is strategically misguided and a threat to civil liberties (“Busa bemoans government’s ‘inadequate response’ to riots”, July 15).
16 July 2021 - In May of 1976, the chairperson of the West Rand Administration Board, which had taken over the administration of Soweto three years earlier, told the Rand Daily Mail that "the broad masses of Soweto are perfectly content, perfectly happy". In June of that year, Soweto erupted.
15 July 2021 - In order to promote the Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally and facilitate cultural exchanges, the Chinese government has established ‘Confucius Institutes’.
15 July 2021 - Have you ever said, "This time, racism is not the problem?" Have you ever considered an allegation of racism and found it to be false? Did you speak your mind in public, or did you keep your thoughts to yourself?
14 July 2021 - President Cyril Ramaphosa has rightly stressed that the rioting that has gripped parts of the country threatens to inflict a wave of hardship as economic supply systems are disrupted. Nowhere will this be felt more keenly than in respect of the food supply.
14 July 2021 - The spate of rioting and looting that began at the weekend has to be a turning point. Never before in our post-1994 history has there been such large-scale lawlessness across the country.
13 July 2021 - ‘Very high levels of economic exclusion, failing schools, unchecked corruption, racial nationalist rhetoric from the government, inept and poorly motivated security forces led by people who do not know what they are doing, and government policy that is unable to address any of these problems and more often than not exacerbates them…’.
As crisis deepens, SA must get real
13 July 2021 - Mounting losses in lives and livelihoods and economic damage running to billions of rands are forcing South Africans to confront the harsh but unavoidable reality that only real reform will #SaveTheEconomy and stem looting and pillage in the long term.