Michael Morris
IRR head of media Michael Morris was a newspaper journalist from 1979 to 2017, covering, among other things, the international campaign against apartheid, from London, and, as a political correspondent in Cape Town, South Africa’s transition to democracy. He has written three books, the last being Apartheid, An Illustrated History, and has an MA in Creative Writing from UCT. He writes a fortnightly column in Business Day.
Articles By This Author
Can South Africa defy the abyss again?
A few days short of 30 years ago, South Africa turned back from the brink. I remember it well. In the cool dawn of Friday
Fostering the suburban dream
Rashly, admittedly, I once suggested to a bemused colleague that if she wanted to live in a leafy suburb she could begin by planting trees.
The costs of our endless wrestling
Just over two years ago, I began an article with a fragment from a 1973 Philip Larkin poem, a sketch from another time, as I
Our sick obsession
Fifty-three years ago, liberal MP Helen Suzman railed against the latest amendment of apartheid’s keystone law, the Population Registration Act, warning John Vorster’s government that
A sense of goodwill
Travelling to Bloemfontein this week, we stopped to fill up with petrol in Beaufort West, the half-way halt longed-for by the children for whom even
When will SA wake up?
We keep being told South Africa is a ticking time bomb of pent-up fury, but somnolence might be our greater challenge. Not that we are
The testing measure of merit
A common objection to the argument for merit – in the job market, business, the public service, the selection of sports teams, entrance to university
Your team is ready and waiting, Cyril
Long into the afternoon, hours after the final whistle blew in Yokohama on Saturday, there were still intermittent bursts of delirious hooting on the freeway
Not our native consciousness
Some of the most vacuous comments about liberalism are also the most demeaning – to black South Africans. The surest sign of flagging faith in
This is the question we must ask ourselves
When will we cease to be Africans, coloureds, Indians and whites and merely be South Africans? These words are not mine – which, all these