Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Westhuizen 1

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Westhuizen 1

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“Losing” more black leaders shows a greater concern with keeping the party as a base for white interests than growing it to a possible future government. (Paul Botes/M&G)
COUNTRY

South Africa’s liberals are failing to wrap their heads around race

The white liberal establishment, both inside and outside the DA, holds onto its race-blindness by distorting the South African idea of “non-racialism”

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
6 min read
Statues like these – here Paul Kruger at Pretoria’s Church Square – are a reminder of a time when Afrikaners were the ruling class.

Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid SA remains stuck in whiteness

Afrikaners in post-apartheid South Africa struggle with a historical sense of inferiority that reinforces their whiteness.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
5 min read
Turf war: Relatives wait for information after prisoners were killed inside a jail in Amazonas
CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

Life behind bars: An inspecting judge of prisons unlocks inmates’ stories

South Africa’s jails have one of the lowest percentages of women prisoners in the world – but among the highest number of men

  • Westhuizen 1
6 min read
Beyond this nostalgia for what it used to be
ANC

ANC policy papers point to a party in a panic about losing power

Documents released ahead of the policy conference of the ANC show it hasn’t the guts or internal balance of forces, for self-correction and renewal.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
4 min read
Clearly
ISRAELI PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

Peace process as cover for occupation

A visit to Israel today shows that it is still ‘a Jewish movement for colonial settlement’.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
8 min read
Missed opportunity: Fewer than expected ANC voters turned out at the party’s manifesto launch. A similar scenario played out at polling stations.
ABORTIONS

Deaths from unsafe abortions are rising

The stigmatisation of abortion continues, also at the highest levels of government. Plus, illegal abortion providers have proliferated.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
6 min read
Black DA supporters cheer at the final election rally in Johannesburg.
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE

Race: The DA’s elephant in the policy room

Can the Democratic Alliance chart a way forward for liberalism and rid itself of a pernicious form of whiteness, asks Christi van der Westhuizen.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
4 min read
Lady Gaga.
COMPUTICKET

Going gaga to get my bit

Despite being something of a multinational corporation in her own right, Lady Gaga has been unable to save her art from the clammy paw of consumerism.

  • Christi Van Der
  • Westhuizen 1
5 min read