Original essays on political economy, historical memory, governance reform, and the social contract. Published here first. Extracts distributed on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X.
Seventy-one years after Kliptown — the Freedom Charter’s promise that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, and the new politics of belonging that now tests it.
On World Refugee Day — the trade, energy and people that bind South Africa to the continent, and what isolation would actually cost.
On Youth Day, fifty years after Soweto — the firebrand who led a generation from the streets toward the state, and the work his absence has left unfinished.
On the 62nd anniversary of the Rivonia Trial sentencing — weighing the worth of the sacrifice for the eight men and their families, for the country, and for the continent.
On African Border Day — the colonial lines authorised at Berlin in 1885 are now Africa’s to govern, and refusing to be divided by them is the work of continental integration.
On the first anniversary of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s death — why decolonising the mind is not a metaphor but an unanswered institutional question.
A declining defence budget is not merely a military concern — it raises deeper questions about industrial policy, technological sovereignty, and South Africa’s long-term strategic autonomy.