The central, compelling idea of a new South Africa was not merely to defeat apartheid and replace it with a new, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist order. That was merely the first step. The main step was to build a South Africa that broke comprehensively with the apartheid past and restore a "human face" to a country dehumanised by this evil system.
We sat over a couple of beers and some wine at our favourite restaurant in Pretoria and shook our heads in despair.
I have just finished reading a moving, gripping new book about South Africa today and yesterday.
Now that the ANC has managed to get rid of Julius Malema, its troublesome youth league president, and his rude sidekick Floyd Shivambu, the party might want to concentrate on something meatier. It might want to ask its president, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, what kind of rotten state he is running in its name.
The rape of a 17-year-old mentally disabled girl by a gang of seven men and boys was among the subjects of a statement issued by the cabinet on Thursday.
Way back in February 2007, just 11 months before the ANC's Polokwane conference, First National Bank decided to launch a major campaign to sensitise President Thabo Mbeki to concerns about crime.
Here is an Easter story, just for fun for the holidays. It is March 2023. President Tokyo Sexwale is in his private study at Mahlamba Ndlopfu, the presidential residence. His brow is furrowed, his eyes steely. Across his desk sits the secretary-general of the ANC, Floyd Shivambu, a former ANC Youth League firebrand who has risen to the top of the party
Every few weeks we hear reports of schoolchildren - packed up to 20 per taxi - being involved in a horrific accident. Three weeks ago it happened again, when a taxi driver overtook six cars at a level crossing. The taxi was hit by a train.
The ANC's succession race is now well and truly under way. Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, long the "what will he do now" man of South African politics, is reportedly now ready to run against President Jacob Zuma for the top job.
Africa's greatest problem over the decades has been leadership or, more correctly, the lack of it. The problem of Africa today remains exactly the same: poor, lousy leadership. We are in trouble.
If President Jacob Zuma wins the ANC presidency in Mangaung in December, a large chunk of the credit must go to Julius Malema.
Excuse me, but was that a raised hand I just saw? Was that Mathews Phosa's hand waving from afar? Has he, finally, girded his loins and put himself forward to lead the ANC?
Sometimes you forget. Life waylays you. There is always something going on: one has to rush to the president's State of the Nation address. Or stop to condemn those who are corrupt.
When they conclude their national executive committee meeting in Tshwane this afternoon, the ANC's leaders might want to take a 10-minute drive through the area before they rush back to their homes.
Every so often I pop open the champagne, plonk myself on the sofa and drink to this great, good and crime-ridden country of ours. I did that on Saturday.
The black African of 100 years ago faced massive and seemingly insurmountable problems.
There are three names that will one day tell us something about the way we live now. They are not the names of powerful or influential men or women; they are not the names of the rich and the famous.
There are people you just have to love. There are all sorts of reasons to love them, but the key one is this: they make South Africa a better place to live in.
There is a sense of boredom as I look at the South African political scene and once again have to comment on the latest developments. It is not that there isn't anything happening .
Last week I wished I kept a diary. It was one of those Dickensian weeks: the best of times and the worst of times, the heaven and the hell, of living in this magnificent country and maturing democracy.
One of the most tedious aspects of wading through primary school was taking "religious studies", a subject that was always taught first thing in the morning.
The year 2011 is meandering to a close. It may be time to ask ourselves: what have we achieved as a nation this year?
The age of Julius Malema, the ANC Youth League leader smacked down by the ANC this week, was the age of poor leadership. Not poor leadership on Malema's part, but on the part of South Africa's political class, business leadership and civil society.
SO PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has brought his personal lawyer, Michael Hulley, into the Presidency as his legal adviser. A few months ago, Zuma brought in Mac Maharaj, his long-time political ally and a close friend of his financial benefactors, the Shaiks, as his spokesman.
Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian resistance movement leader, was not what one would call a Bollinger Bolshevik.
THEY are killing black people in Libya. They are killing them in the street, they are killing them in hospitals, they are killing them in transit camps, they are killing them in their houses.
WHEN chief justice nominee Mogoeng Mogoeng is installed in office by President Jacob Zuma he might want to reflect on a few things.
ON THURSDAY evening I flew out of South Africa on an overseas trip. At the airport book shop I noticed a new-ish magazine called Business Times Africa.
IT WOULD be very nice indeed to think that the ANC leadership decided to charge the party's youth league leader Julius Malema out of a love for order and discipline in the party.
FORGET about the present and the future. South Africa cannot escape its past. If anything, the past week's events and debates underline how divided, how far apart, we still are.
A YOUNG woman is living like a prisoner in Swaziland. She is one of King Mswati III's numerous wives. She reportedly had an affair with one of his friends and for that she has been placed under lock and key in her house.
THE Africans are dying again. This time it's the Somalis, thousands of them. Emaciated and parentless children, looking like walking skeletons, are arriving in camps in Kenya after walking for days without drink or food. Behind them lie arid lands and warfare.
South Africa and the world celebrate Mandela Day today. We should all be doing our bit to honour the man who represents the very best we can be: ethical, moral, activist, true and generous.
THEY are young. You can see they are afraid and unsure, and they are egging each other on. There is no bravery here, no valour. Just false bravado fuelled by ignorance.
IN THE early 1990s South African cynics coined a phrase that they gleefully used to denigrate journalists who saw the positive side of the changes the country was going through.
We are back at that terrible place again. On the radio, the debate has descended to 1990 levels. The whites, at least those who call in to talk radio at night, are talking of packing their bags and leaving the country. In typical talk-radio fashion, the blacks respond by showing the middle finger: "Go if you want."
THE story is often told of how the apartheid Security Branch was waiting for Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma at Jan Smuts Airport in 1990 - to arrest and torture him - after picking up intelligence that he was making his way into South Africa. Zuma was at the time head of ANC intelligence.
Justice Malala: The great ones . well, they are dying now. The elders of the struggle, the ones who raised a fist of defiance and shouted "Amandla!" even as they were bundled into police vans to be sentenced to years, decades even, in jail - they are leaving us now, at a faster and faster rate.
