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Mail & Guardian
social cohesionlatest news & developments
Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Maropene Ramokgopa

Youth Month 2026: Building peace around migration through diplomacy and ubuntu

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, South Africa's Youth Month focuses on building peace around migration. The article highlights the importance of…

President Cyril Ramaphosa.Photo: @CyrilRamaphosa/X

Ramaphosa: National Dialogue will launch ‘a million conversations’ about SA’s problems

President Cyril Ramaphosa put a brave face on Friday to legacy foundations and opposition parties boycotting a convention to kick off a National Dialogue on how to resolve South…

We can learn how to build trust by looking at global trends and South Africa’s reality

Rebuilding trust is key to social cohesion

We can learn how to build trust by looking at global trends and South Africa’s reality

Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, chair of the Moral Regeneration Movement

The journey to restore morality in South Africa

The Moral Regeneration Movement chaired by Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is focusing on action against violence, declining social cohesion and moral decay

South African flag. Getty Images

Trends suggest social cohesion is on downward slide

In recent years, when social cohesion has been discussed in South Africa, it has been with an increasingly critical undertone

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana.(Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Can harsh fiscal trade-offs still improve agency and social cohesion for South Africans?

This year’s budget will be a balancing act, but the treasury needs to prioritise restoring South Africans economic agency

The 2021 July riots were the most widespread, coordinated, and visible instance of looting in South Africa.

The effects of the recent looting on South Africa’s young democracy

Rebuilding is crucial, but democracies cannot allow themselves to be held to ransom by the destruction of anarchists in dictating where public funds should be spent

SANDF example shows how we can rethink African peace and security architecture

Cyril Ramaphosa’s creative employment of the SANDF as part of Covid-19 relief efforts is an example of using the military to build social cohesion

Social cohesion insists that we must all be the same when we have a right to be different. (AFP)

The hidden evils of “social cohesion”

Bandied around as a panacea, “social cohesion” is actually a way for the elite to dominate citizens by forcing them to repress their differences

ANC deputy president David Mabuza. (Sumaya Hisham/Reuters)

David Mabuza faces first questions as deputy president in the National Assembly

The deputy president will be asked about social cohesion, moral regeneration and radical economic transformation

Work hard

Class and social capital affect university students

People’s experiences of accessing and succeeding in higher education are affected by their social standing

Poverty

State of cohesion in the nation needs to be seriously addressed

If social cohesion is not defined and a social pact not developed, democracy is further undermined and inequality, along racial lines, widens

The climate is ripe for social change

Forget the UN, social justice movements offer the only viable solution to global warming.

Justice: President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered a commission of inquiry into ANC governments’ role in possibly delaying investigations.

Is the ANC still a non-racial party?

ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has tackled the issue of social cohesion, but the ANC has fallen far from Nelson Mandela’s non-racial vision.

The victims of violence can be victimised again through the media. This photo from the 2008 xenophobic attacks shows the media response.

The media inadvertendly promotes violence

Media must report rensponsibly on violence.

Innocent Nkatha

How we became a society

Taking the notion of "social cohesion" out of the academic field and into the real world is not as tricky as it seems.

Building resilience in communities prevents violence

“Enough is a Feast”

There are many approaches to what constitutes social cohesion.

Building resilience in communities prevents violence

Building resilience in communities prevents violence

Social cohesion is both a protection against and a casualty of violence.

Bringing up children in happy and supportive family environment will contribute to a society free from violence.

The notion of ‘the other’ may drive violence in SA

Several flaws in the rainbow nation may account for South Africa’s frightened communities.