Deeds to privatised land not all they’re cracked up to be
President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised black farmers title deeds to 2.5 million hectares of state land. It sounds like a good land reform idea, but it is hobbled from the start.
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You can’t defend liberalism with tribalism
There is an increasingly prevalent view among some within the broad South African liberal community that liberalism needs more elements of identity politics, group focus, and collectivism; that liberalism needs a tribe. Part of the underlying appeal is the view
The Pretoria agreement is dead. South Africa cannot look away
Four years ago, in a conference room at the DIRCO building in Pretoria, Ethiopian and Tigrayan negotiators signed the deal that ended one of the deadliest wars, not only of this decade, but of the last half-century. South Africa hosted
Mathipa hit: shaking the democratic state to its core
There’s a saying among my fellow military veterans that if a guy in a bar tells you that he was a Recce, one of South Africa’s famed Special Forces reconnaissance soldiers – he wasn’t. That’s because despite their fearsome reputation
Leopards and the cost of coexistence
I am delighted that leopards still occur around my thirteen hectares on the West Rand. But one settling there and killing my dogs would soon exhaust my enthusiasm. I don't find that difficult to admit. Most people become rather less
Understanding the ANC voter
Most people agree that ANC voters effectively control SA’s future. It is comforting to be reminded that citizens are not powerless; they are de facto in charge. That same thought is equally terrifying. For many, a pressing question remains: “Why
The Smarties solution
Let’s face it: growing old is a miserable story. Take for example one old toppie who thinks he has it all planned out. At the age of seventy he sells up and moves into the Golden Years Retirement Village. A
Self-determination is not a dirty word
One of the biggest obstacles to a radically better future for the peoples of South Africa is squeamishness about the use of two words. As a teenage boy, I grew up in the UK during the onset of the AIDS
Race, income and the astronomical potential of Nelson Mandela Bay
South Africa is 20% Wakanda and 80% Flea Bottom. That is the impression I got from the paper, Racial Inequality and Redistribution in Post-Apartheid South Africa, which examines income, taxes and government transfers between 1993 and 2019, using a database