Opinion and Analysis

City committed to promoting small businesses

It is with disappointment that I read your piece ‘Red tape blocks Khayelitsha small businesses’.

Garreth Bloor

Opinion | 18 February 2014

Three suggestions to improve the lives of thousands of people in South Africa

It has become taboo in much of the world to discriminate against people because of their religion, skin colour or sex. Despite recent setbacks the same goes for sexual orientation. Gradually we are realising that these are arbitrary distinctions, at least when it comes to law and policy.

Nathan Geffen

Opinion | 18 February 2014

Can Khayelitsha be policed?

The Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry has entered its third week. Its aim is to investigate the allegations that SAPS have been inefficient in their policing of Khayelitsha and that there has been a breakdown in police-community relations.

Adam Armstrong

Opinion | 3 February 2014

The Transformative Farce of Davos

Vague ideas of transformation are all the rage these days. Take the latest bun fight in Davos, for example. The annual gathering of the grandly named World Economic Forum (WEF) that ended last weekend met under the heading: “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”

Terry Bell

Opinion | 31 January 2014

Pharma plot has consequences for the blind

If a secret plot by foreign pharmaceutical companies and their local subsidiaries to delay South Africa's IP policy process until after the elections succeeds, non-pharmaceutical sectors will also be affected.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 29 January 2014

Opening statement on behalf of the complainant organisations at the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry

Opening statement on behalf of the complainant organisations at the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency in Khayelitsha and a breakdown in relations between the community and police in Khayelitsha.

Peter Hathorn, Ncumisa Mayosi, Michael Bishop

Opinion | 23 January 2014

What 2014 may hold for SA and the labour movement

Given the potentially highly volatile social, political and economic situation in South Africa today it would be foolhardy to forecast in any detail how the country and its people — let alone the labour movement — will fare in 2014.

Terry Bell - Inside Labour

Opinion | 22 January 2014

The need for real media transformation

Transformation of the media in South Africa is essential. But we should be very clear about what we mean by such transformation.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 14 January 2014

Clarity, Kriel and the Cape Times

A lack of adequate resources and asset-stripping by the Irish carpetbagger Tony — now Sir Anthony — O'Reilly are the real problems with the Cape Times, not the undeniable quality, let alone pigmentation, of the staff. But there are other issues too that require examination.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 29 December 2013

Rent a crowd protest - an attack on media freedom

Cape Times editor Alide Dasnois was fired by Iqbal Surve, executive chairperson of the Sekunjalo Consortium, the day after Mandela’s death.

Shireen Mukadam

Opinion | 18 December 2013

Mandela and the dangers of deification

As everyone from monarchs to the labouring masses this week sought to share in the Mandela memorial moment, the myth machine went into overdrive, the very machine Mandela had so disparaged when I sat with him in his Johannesburg office in 1992. One sentence he uttered then has resonated with me throughout the years: “I am no messiah.”

Terry Bell

Opinion | 17 December 2013

When the ANC jeered Madiba

Do any of the members of the ANC's 1997-2002 NEC now regret the way they heckled and jeered Madiba at an NEC meeting in March 2002?

Roy Jobson

Opinion | 12 December 2013

Unity after Madiba?

After the departure of Nelson Mandela, where is this unity we talk about? On the day of Tata's memorial the world was watching. It was a day where South Africans from different backgrounds, through the rain, walked, drove, took buses, trains and taxis to Soccer City to witness the memorial of an African hero.

Axolile Notywala

Opinion | 12 December 2013

Hatched the day before Madiba’s release: a born-free speaks

I was born the day before Madiba's release from prison. Most of what I know about him I was told by my parents or I learnt at school. I never met him. Nevertheless, the way he shared his life made it feel as if I knew him personally.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

Opinion | 12 December 2013

If the boo fits …

In his 2004 Nelson Mandela lecture Desmond Tutu bravely suggested that an “uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity” constituted a threat to democracy in South Africa. He said that “too many are foolhardy and opt for silence to become voting cattle for the party.”

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 12 December 2013

Humbug Dr Survè

Iqbal Survè, whose company Sekunjalo now owns Independent Newspapers, is not merely a profoundly disingenuous man. He has shown that he's willing to use his newly acquired media empire to support his disingenuity.

Nathan Geffen, GroundUp Editor

Opinion | 11 December 2013