I am a 43 year old white woman who grew up under the apartheid regime in South Africa… writes Ilze Lee. As many others, I held my breath when apartheid came to an end. It was a time of fear and uncertainty, but also… hope. So much hope for a better South Africa, for equality. […]

In his first State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa posed the key question: has South Africa built a society where the injustices of the past no longer define the lives of the present? The answer is clearly no. Among the biggest injustices is unemployment. Last year the unemployment rate worsened to over 27%. […]

AfriForum launched its Anchor Town Roadshow in Pretoria on Monday. During this launch week, AfriForum personnel will pick up garbage in streets, paint road signs and clean up and deforest areas, as well as visit an animal shelter to present donations from the public. The Anchor Town Roadshow is a campaign aimed at creating a […]

Vulnerable communities have lost their land to the state and mining companies in the past decade. In 2018, the political stage was dominated by the question of whether government has or should have the power to expropriate property without compensation – and use it. Some hailed this as the silver bullet that would lift millions […]

The South African government has launched the #NaturallySuperior campaign which aims to rally behind golden girl Caster Semenya. The campaign will target various eminent people, sectors of the local and global community as well as human rights organisations to join in condemning and opposing International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regulations. Its mandate, according to […]

If people are not willing to invest in a country, it is almost impossible to generate new jobs, writes Professor Vimal Ranchod.   South Africa’s unemployment rate is one of the highest in the world. It is consistently measured above 20%. This is a national crisis that feeds two of the country’s other big socio-economic […]

If you live in South Africa, you’re very familiar with the term “load shedding.” If you’re not from South Africa, you probably have no idea what load shedding is writes Canadian expat Phil Maloney. In a nutshell, load shedding occurs when Eskom, the government monopoly that provides the country with consistently intermittent power, decides to cut off […]

Valentine’s Day is only a week away when the world focuses on LOVE. One of the country’s foremost professional matchmakers warns that modern living with all its stresses and technological advances can rob South Africans of the necessary skills to create and maintain healthy relationships. Kas Naidoo believes that SA’s alarming divorce rate could be lowered if […]

Okay, I feel it is my citizen’s duty to inform you as a member of the public, that somewhere in your lifetime, you WILL have to go to a government department writes South African photographer Gabriel Sithole. I just picked up my new licence card… after a long and frustrating wait! I have compiled just 10 […]

World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director Dr Matshidiso Moeti says thousands of lives can be saved in Africa with proper cancer prevention, early detection, access to proper treatment and care. Moeti made the remarks on Monday as the world commemorates World Cancer Day. This year’s World Cancer Day is observed under the theme “I am […]

South African expat Nitanja Steyn has lived in the Netherlands, the US and Germany since leaving SA in 2014. But no matter where she lives… her heart belongs back home in South Africa. Yesterday she penned a poignant poem ‘Die Verlanging van ‘n Suid-Afrikaner’, in Afrikaans (see below). Here she has kindly translated it into […]

There are many things for which I wish I could take up a national podium and make a public service announcement (PSA) to white South Africans. But since I do not have that as yet, let me just put it in writing… writes Lovelyn Nwadeyi, founder and director of L & N Advisors. PSA 1: […]

We consume the products of slavery every day. All of us. Today’s globalised supply chains make it is almost impossible to avoid goods or services free of the fingerprints of slavery. Electronic gadgets, clothing, fish, cocoa and cane sugar are the products mostly likely to be tainted. In contrast to state-sanctioned slave ownership in the […]

A recent online video took what seemed like an inspirational moment viral. The video, shot by Dmitry Kedrov using a drone, shows a baby bear climbing up and falling down the side of a mountain near Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk. After repeated efforts, the cub finally reaches the top, joining his mother and winning the […]

For my Sister, on the day she immigrates… writes Jessica Galloway. I want you to know that it’s hard and heavy some days. All the skype sessions in the world cannot come close to mom’s chocolate brownies… I want you to know that the hard days wont last forever. But they need to be lived. Leaving […]

The brilliantly talented, insightful and always frank Viv Vermaak has perfectly summed up the feelings of so many people in South Africa (and the world) who suffer from anxiety and depression. Responding to Viv’s words, posted Tuesday morning, one parent said “you wrote this today for my daughter, who is very dear to my heart. Thank […]

Whataboutery is the art, in debate and dialogue, of evading a question by deflecting attention to an issue of supposedly equal or greater significance… writes Gus Silber. It is the easiest and cheapest of rhetorical tactics, dating all the way back to the schoolyard – “I know I am, but what are you?” – which […]

Forgive the political tone – I am trying to keep it in check, but I fail… writes South African musician Albert Combrink. Dear Friends, I love you dearly. But I just CAN’T with all this negativity about South Africa all the time. When I look at the quality of your lives, and the quality of […]

This is a conversation that I have been having with clients for many years, but it is now becoming more and more prevalent in their lives… writes financial consultant Marc Sydow. To leave SA or not? It has also become quite a hot topic around the dinner table, it’s almost like we feel the need […]

Dear (Some) White South Africans THERE IS NO WHITE GENOCIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA! There is only a race of people who believe the murders of ‘their people’ should be given more attention than the murders of other races. White people need to please understand that most black people don’t hate them; we just hate their […]

I usually blog about life here in South Africa, but I’ve had roughly a kabillion Saffas contact me to ask what they can expect when they move from South Africa to Canada… writes Phil Maloney. I’m inherently very lazy by nature, so I’m writing this post simply so I don’t have to keep answering the […]

Why does South Africa not fall off the precipice? Economists are clear that if this economy does not grow soon, the prospects of new jobs are dismal and rising unemployment will be our fate… writes Prof Jonathan Jansen. Educationists are clear that if the decline in education quality and the high drop-out rates continue, schools […]

My Dad is my real hero because he is the most special person in my life. He’s a very good athlete and an artist. He is a Corporal in the Army and sometimes he is away from us for 6 to 8 months, but we talk to each other every day… And at weekends when […]

When Free Speech is counter-attacked by intense scrutiny, intimidations and death threats because of unpopular views, we should all be concerned as that’s not how Constitutional democracy operates, write Neo Nino Mofokeng. Shashi Naidoo is yet another high profile South African who has been scrutinised, viciously attacked by the popular left and in the extreme, […]

As South Africa marked Youth Day on Saturday 16 June 2018, Sophia Kapp – an author and language practitioner from Pretoria – wrote the following moving message for Hector Pieterson, the 12-year-old boy who was fatally wounded during the Soweto Riots 42 years ago, and whose image was immortalised in the iconic photo by the […]