Austerity is not South Africa’s health problem
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi recently told South Africans that the public healthcare system’s failures stem from a decade of “austerity”. He repeated this word, deliberately, five times in one sentence. It is a memorable line. However, it’s not a claim the data support.
Reading between the lines: why learners need inferential thinking
In a world increasingly carved for speed and brevity, meaning making should be more than a curriculum objective. Learners are first human beings. And given their innate need for connectedness, personal relationship, and even humour, making meaning is something they actually love to do.
Flagging spirits
Noah is a private-school boy.
Slaying fantastic monsters: the campaign against SA’s data centres
Activists have discovered a new dragon to slay: the data centre. If they succeed, they will have protected poor South Africans from jobs, investment and
Why does everyone hate billionaires?
It’s easy to hate billionaires. Although “hate” may be a bit strong, let’s rather say that most people are less than well disposed towards them. The narrative goes like this – to accumulate that much money is a mark of greed, or moral turpitude, or worse. It seems to violate some unwritten law of civil society. And there are indeed a great many odious representatives of the mega-rich class, and many who became billionaires by accident – they inherited it.
Resolve Communications and the alleged conflicts of interest
The media in SA has been abuzz with stories concerning the probity of the relationship between DA members of cabinet (and latterly) of parliament on the one side and Resolve Communications (and its secure-SIM-card-preoccupied clients) on the other.
Going the full Nigerian
Not sure you’re familiar with the phrase ‘going full Nigerian’, but that’s probably because I made it up a decade and a half ago.
The risks in proposed water-use rules
In 1998 the ANC took custodianship of all water resources under the National Water Act but denied this amounted to expropriation. Now, it plans to make race the dominant factor in water-use licensing and water allocation. Given past land reform failures, this could result in not redress but more assets “dying in the hands of the poor.”
Why SA cannot subsidise its way out of becoming a failing state
South Africa is once again arguing about the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP). The key question is not whether this one programme pays for itself, but whether South Africa can keep subsidising firms and sectors while the basic services those firms depend on keep failing.
Do Afrikaners get to be Afrikaners per se?
The recent controversy over Bokkieweek offers a useful lens on a deeper and recurring question in South African public life: do Afrikaners get to exist as Afrikaners per se, or only as scattered individuals whose cultural preferences must remain private and unorganised?