/ 24 December 2015

How Zuma’s cabinet performed this year to #feesmustfall

How Zuma’s Cabinet Performed This Year To #feesmustfall

If there’s one M&G edition you must buy, it’s our bumper end of year newspaper, on shelves from Wednesday December 23 2015.

One of the biggest highlights includes the annual edition of our famous cabinet report cards. Months in the making, the M&G report cards are the most comprehensive snapshot of how Jacob Zuma’s cabinet is performing. We tell you who’s failing and whose slaying – and despite how difficult this year has been, you’ll be surprised which ministers are actually doing a pretty good job.

Every December we also put out a themed edition to capture the mood of the year. This year we felt that “People Power” summed up the year that was: from #feesmustfall to #zumamustfall and the more pertinent question: what must rise?

We get some of South Africa’s hottest and up and coming writers to interrogate the year South Africans put statues and presidents in their place.

The underlying theme of the #Rhodesmustfall protests was decolonisation and we take a look at that too: we may have decolonised Africa but what about decolonising our attitudes towards our food, beauty and hair – and politics?

Sisonke Msimang writes a beautiful ode to her mother, freshly returned to the country post-1994 with dreams of opening a world class African restaurant, only to find the new black elite were not interested in eating African food. Writers like Sipho Hlongwane discuss the difference between freedom and emancipation and posits that decolonisation is ultimately about the imagination. Like Nechame Brodie asks in her interrogation of the broader effects of the student protests, the larger question is: what must rise? This is the question for 2016.

As one Ugandan writer, Gloria Nakajubi, points out: South Africans seem to be unhealthily obsessed with race and identity, something she is not used to in her own African country. Sam Sole, a self-proclaimed grumpy white man, wonders if all the attention given to the decolonisation debate detracts attention from the urgent problem of corruption in the country, and how elites are feasting off the state.

And of course we have all the news you need to know: the EFF also need to #paybackthemoney and aren’t honouring a CCMA ruling in favor of their own former workers, the DA needs to be decolonised, Karyn Maughan questions the media’s coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial and the latest SAA drama so far: Will Pravin Gordhan be the one minister to stand his ground with Dudu Myeni?

Then is the usual end of year edition favourites: a list of the biggest corruption scandals that rocked the country every month this year, our annual quiz, the best music and books of the year and Madam and Eve and Zapiro’s special end of year cartoons.

Remember, this is our last issue of the M&G for 2015, published on 23 December 2015: on a Wednesday instead of the usual Friday. This issue will be on sale from 23 December to 7 January 2016. If it is not on shelf, please ask for it as the shop keeper may have removed it from sale early in error. It is unlikely to have sold out as we have increased the print order in anticipation of increased demand.

We have thus made the newspaper more widely available than usual to make life as easy as possible for you over the festive season. The paper will of course be available in all the usual shops where you are used to finding it but we have also opened new stores in the major (and not so major) holiday areas, so that you can find your favourite holiday read wherever you may be. If you are in any doubt you will be able to find the newspaper at all good bookstores, newsagents as well as at major supermarket chains throughout South Africa.

The M&G is of course also available digitally. We have a variety of Android, Apple and desktop editions available and all printed content is available to active subscribers online as well:

Web access: Please visit here http://mg.co.za/section/in-the-paper/ to view the newspaper content online, once you have logged into your paid account. If you are not a subscriber, you can buy a digital subscription here: https://subscribe.mg.co.za/product/pdf-edition/.

Otherwise, please log into the relevant app store on your device and search for Mail & Guardian to download the edition for Kindle, iPad and Android devices. More details for the Kindle edition here http://mg.co.za/page/kindle-edition/ and the iPad edition here: http://mg.co.za/page/ipad.