“Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje opens the first chapter of his Native Life in South Africa with this well-known declaration. Plaatje wrote most of the manuscript for Native Life in 1914 aboard a ship to England. He was travelling with a team of four other leaders of the South African Native National Congress (later the ANC). The deputation

By Tshepo Madlingozi and Lee-Anne Germanos Manuel As Freedom Month draws to a close, we would do well to remember Madiba’s words: "The time has come to accept in our hearts and minds that with freedom comes responsibility.” Nelson Mandela spoke these words in 1995 during the State of the Nation address. It could be said that Mandela was invoking a notion of freedom that goes beyond the Eurocentric and liberal model. The Botho/Ubuntu notion of freedom conceptualises freedom as

Thursday marks the 6th International Day against bullying and violence at school. This year, we observe it in the wake of the Milnerton High School bullying incident and Mthatha's St John's College's sexual violence allegations, which have sent shockwaves throughout the country.

This month, on 15 September, parliaments, national human rights institutions and civil society around the world observed the International Day of Democracy, declared as such by the UN General Assembly in 2007. This year’s observation also serves as a reminder of the need to promote and protect democracy against increased threats to it – the likes of which we are witnessing globally, and in our country.

Professor Mosibudi Mangena’s September 21, 2025 column in the Sunday World titled, “Declaring ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it” is stupid and counterproductive” refers. The column raises important questions about nation building and post-apartheid belongingness that are worth debating. I will return to these issues in a moment. Unfortunately, the good prof spoils the column with misleading statements about the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). He claim

This year is the 40th anniversary of the first State of Emergency by the apartheid regime. In recalling this ignoble anniversary, I choose to focus on the challenge the apartheid regime sought to address with that unprecedented suppression tool: people’s power. I posit that one of the outcomes of the National Dialogue ought to be the reinvigoration of the spirit and praxis of people’s power.

As Africa Month ends, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) wishes to draw attention to a key struggle for African self-determination, remembering and “re-membering”. That struggle is the struggle for the full liberation of cannabis.

The enduring significance of Le Rona Re Batho: An Account of the 1982 Massacre is that it is exemplary of the project of go motho fatsha - the project of (re)humanisation. I want to argue that this book is important because it operationalises what I regard as the four tactics of anti-colonial humanisation work; namely, grievability, naming, discrediting of colonial narratives and engaging in counter-discourse to refuse the terms set by the coloniser. To read the full article

It is crucial that there is a national dialogue that engages seriously with the question of how we work towards a truly non-racist society. While this discourse on the impugned racial classifications includes identities of individuals and groups, it is also integral to the national question — a question about nation-building pursuant to redress, redistribution, reparations, and reconciliation processes and measures. This twin deconstruction and reconstruction approach is also

Fifty-five years ago, a group of black students launched the South African Student Organisation (SASO). They delinked from white-dominated student organisations because they were impelled to face the existentialist questions posed to all historically colonised and oppressed individuals and groups — “what am I?” and “who am I?” Responses to these questions are prerequisites to launching struggles for genuine liberation and emancipation. The failure to respond to these question

The highly anticipated judgment this week will have far-reaching implications. The implication for intersex people and the recognition of their equal right to pursue a profession in sports is critical. The judgment will set the tone for future sporting regulation. Hopefully, it will ensure that human rights are and promoted by sporting bodies all over the world.

In South Africa, the past is in the present, and we must start a serious dialogue on reparative justice if we are to realise racial and social justice and thus urgently begin to resolve the national question. Otherwise, we will see more protests by the so-called born frees and their middle- and upper-class parents to be accommodated and included in (formerly) white spaces. To read the full article online, visit: https://www.news24.com/citypress/voices/tshepo-madlingozi-no-jus