3 July 2019 - Our polling shows that a solid eight out of ten South Africans respect their fellow citizens and see their fates as intertwined. They reject race-baiting be it from the ‘right’ or the ‘left’. Most too reject populist faux-solutions to our economic woes. Their priorities are employment, safety and education. It is, in other words, our political class – along with many influencers and intellectuals – that is out of step with society.
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.
3 July 2019 - Jeremy Gordin’s review of my new abridged book on the people’s war waged by the ANC from 1984 to 1994 is a complex mix of welcome praise and unfounded criticism.
2 July 2019 - The only way out of the trap, so that it becomes possible at all to have a proper debate about South Africa’s policy options, is to run hard at the bounds of acceptable opinion, so as to change the rules of the game.
1 July 2019 - Four months ago the deputy president, David Mabuza, said that people who did not make it on to the ANC's final national and provincial lists for the elections in May would be deployed to other institutions. The scope of deployment was wide, and his party would look at other options so that "we occupy every important point in every important institution".
1 July 2019 - Racialism nowadays is not only sharply contrary to the sentiments of most South Africans, but is the main obstacle to overcoming the effects it wrought in the past.
30 June 2019 - Die meeste van Suid-Afrikaners, swart en wit, is gematigde, konservatiewe, hardwerkende, gesinsgerigte, godsvresende en wetsgehoorsame mense. Ambassadeur Mandela verteenwoordig nie vir jou en my en 80% van ons landgenote nie.
24 June 2019 - Mr Ramaphosa was of course absolutely correct to state that "we cannot turn our fortunes around without a relentless focus on economic growth". The trouble is that 18 months into his presidency there is not much sign that he actually has any such "focus".
21 June 2019 -The State of the Nation Address (SONA) signalled that South Africa could look forward to more of the same. Although offering in parts an uplifting and optimistic view on the future trajectory of the country, and while some will be enthused by the re-emergence of the National Development Plan, the SONA offered very little that suggested that innovative thinking or substantial policy reforms were on the way.
20 June 2019 - I address this open letter to Kevin Leathem, the deputy principal of Jeppe High School in Johannesburg, whose speech about white privilege went viral a year ago – though I missed it at the time. I have a retired marxist professor to thank for bringing it to my attention more recently in the context of renewed debate about privilege – stimulated in part by Helen Zille and Thuli Madonsela.
19 June 2019 - As President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to address South Africans and the world in his State of the Nation Address, the news that the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture has finally handed its report to him and his deputy, David Mabuza, could foreshadow a new crisis. That is, if it is not handled with far more aplomb than some recent controversies.
19 June 2019 - It denotes a country racked by its own small-minded parochialism, increasingly no longer a "serious" country.
18 June 2019 - Given our findings in the Unite the Middle report, it is fair to say that most South Africans subscribe to civic nationalism. Being a South African has little to do with your skin colour, the language you speak, or where your ancestors are from. It has more to do with being tolerant and wanting to work with others in building a successful country.