The Presidency has a new website, let us call it Presidency 2.0. As I visited the site after Minister Manuel had announced the details of the government’s plan till 2014. Officially, it is called the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF).…
As Professor Pink lead narrator on the SABC educational programme, ‘Knock Knock’, explored Galileo’s confrontation with power, the SABC was engaged in its own tryst with changing power. President Thabo Mbeki appointed the board of the SABC in a move…
The ultimate conceit in policy debates is to dismiss one’s adversaries with the words: “They just don’t get it.” In the run up to the elections this year and on the occasion of Cabinet announcements, a common refrain from private…
“The People shall share in the countries wealth.” This clause in the Freedom Charter tells of a continuing struggle to build a society that is more equal, prosperous and in which opportunity abounds for all. In recounting the Freedom Charter,…
Whose reality counts? The Chief Economist of Very Large Bank in South Africa had just argued that ‘a food crisis was a direct result of improving living conditions’. I wanted to hurl a copy of Das Kapital across the airways…
The in-flight magazine on Kenyan Airways had the usual-usual. The spine of the magazine surprised: a Swahili proverb had been written on it. I cannot remember the exact wording, but it read something like: When two bulls fight, the people…
(I have been working on this for a while for my studies, but seeing as Minister Trevor Manuel is quoting Roberto Mangabeira Unger in the 2008/09 budget, I thought it appropriate to get this blog done, even though I still…
Thought Leader is doing collective introspection on its race and gender representation, and in some cases in denial about the problem. I hope that this blog adds a little to the debate. It’s a little bit theoretical at first, but…
The After 8 Debate raised an important question for me: What are the qualities of leadership? The debate provided important perspectives, especially that leadership is both complex and contextual. What qualities should the president of South Africa have to implement…