NIGHT FALL

Defend Our Democracy wishes all those living in South Africa a safe and happy Heritage Month. It is through our hard won democracy that we are able to celebrate our diverse cultures, beliefs and traditions, in the wider context of a nation that belongs to all its people.

And, even though we are able to celebrate Heritage Month, it is important that we equally embrace a heritage and culture of constitutionalism. Defend Our Democracy believes that the only way we can do this is through a commitment of ethical leadership from our public representatives, who must embody principles of good governance, transparency and accountability, particularly as it pertains to political party fundraising and the need for prioritising the interest of the public over those of the party.

On this Heritage Moth, Defend Our Democracy reiterates support of the Political Party Funding Act and the need for meaningful electoral reform. We welcome the recent Constitutional Court judgement made, that upheld a Gauteng High Court judgement that the Executive Ethics Code, in its current state, is unconstitutional and invalid. The Executive Ethics Code did not require members of the executive to disclose donations made for their election campaign to be elected to positions within political parties.

Guest on the line: Zaakirah Vadi –from Defend Our Democracy

September is Heritage Month where the nation observes and celebrates all that it inherited from preceding generations. This is the sort of inheritance that includes — but is not limited to — culture, traditions, monuments, and knowledge, land and belief systems. It anchors the nation. The value attached to any form of heritage is what sustains it and any inheritance that may be deemed to be of less value, loses its significance with the progression of time. Heritage Month and Heritage Day is the time the nation ought to celebrate oneness in diversity. Unity in diversity requires clarity of mind and extreme levels of tolerance for each other’s uniqueness. South African society presents such diversity in languages, cultures, religions, tribes, politics and nationalities, among others. Although some of these are inherited and others are acquired, they create a mosaic worth embracing and celebrating.

Guest on the line: Dr Mpumelelo Ncube -HoD & Senior Lecturer Dept. of Social Work University of the Free State

Guest on the line:Gogo Mmabatho Makgopa( Gogbojour) - an afro ancestral empath

Cold water has been poured on racism allegations after a student has been suspended from the Helshoogte Stellenbosch University (SU) men’s residence after he allegedly urinated on himself while sitting on his room-mate’s chair

The incident comes three months after a white undergraduate Theuns du Toit was expelled from the university after he shocked the nation when he urinated on the valuables of first year agricultural student, Babalo Ndwayana.

Still reeling from Du Toit’s scandal, the university rushed to do damage control after the latest incident.

Guest on the line: the South African Union of Students National Spokesperson, Asive Dlanjwa

There are currently some 27 200 practising attorneys registered on the roll of attorneys at the Legal Practice Council and 7 000 candidate attorneys in South Africa.

With a majority of attorneys being white (53%), the recently published Draft Legal Sector Code (Draft LSC) looks to address the imbalances and inequalities in the profession and ensure the development of the body that will produce well-trained and competent providers of legal services.The legal profession does not currently have a sector code to guide it in addressing the imbalances and inequalities.

The Legal Practitioners Fidelity Fund (LPFF) is a fidelity guarantee fund whose aim is to protect the public against loss as a result of theft of trust funds. The organisation also plays a major role in ensuring that the public has confidence in the legal profession.

Guest on the line: The Legal Practitioners Fidelity Fund (LPFF) CEO, Motlatsi Molefe

Guest 1 on the line: Dr Sello Galane, An Academic and Renowned SA musician 

Sello Galane is a vocalist and percussionist extraordinaire who was born in 1966 into a musical family. His father, Maeke, was a Kiba music and dance leader (malokwane) and his mother, Moaki, was a singer in the Lutheran Church. Sello grew up in Leboneng, Hammanskraal where he completed his elementary schooling. He received tertiary education at the University of Cape Town where he met other musicians like Judith Sephuma, Selaelo Selota and Magalane Phosokho, with whom he experimented in fusing kiba music into jazz.

Career

After graduation in 1991, they went separate ways to pursue solo careers; Galane reversed the experiment by fusing jazz and pop into kiba to a point where the repertoire grew beyond the confines of a single tribal traditional music genre. He named it Free-Kiba; the tradition of music making and cultural communication of the Amandebele-a-Moletlane, the BaPedi akin to the Venda Tshikona. Galane relocated to his father‟s birth place, Ga-Mashashane in Limpopo province, where he met ordinary village Kiba performers who schooled him in the craft. Galane plays a family of drums: sekgokolo (father drum), kgalapedi (mother drum) and matikwane (twin children).

Guest on line: Matseleng Mogodi who - a Life and Executive Coach and founder of I Get It Now.

Cheating: it’s the ultimate relationship violation and a notorious relationship killer. A favorite gossiping pastime, the phenomenon is frequently discussed but difficult to study. The goal is to avoid getting caught, so why confess infidelity in the name of science?

But scientists can offer us new insight on a topic often shrouded in stigma and mystery. As researchers have recently demonstrated, cheating is rarely a simple affair. There are many reasons why people cheat, and the patterns are more complex than common stereotypes suggest.

Suthukazi, born in Cala, Transkei, Eastern Cape, was from an early age immersed in music. She studied ballet and modern jazz in Cape Town before moving to Johannesburg to pursue a music career. Although Suthukazi stands before us today as one of Africa's leading voices, she is also an accomplished actress having performed in many South African productions — skills that were honed by mentor with Gibson Kente.

Her album The Journey is a slight diversion for this amazing talent. Produced by D-Rex (David Campos), of Mapaputsi fame, as well as featuring the touches of maestro guitarist Bheki Khoza — with two additional songs produced by Joe Nina as well — we see an album that fuses modern urban African rhythms with the raw magic and rural flavor that Suthukazi is so famous for, and delivers so magically both live and in studio. A perfect blend that creates music that is danceable and holds appeal for all, whilst still maintaining its identity and integrity as truly African music with strong and conscious messages delivered with amazing power!

Guest on the line: Suthukazi Arosi - a singer, performer and actress and KORA/SAMA Award Winning South African Musical icon

The South African government recently ended the issuing of abridged birth certificates in favour of the unabridged certificate that contains the names and identity numbers of both the mother and father of the newborn [1].

However, the phenomenon of children growing up without knowing their biological fathers is not going to go away soon. Names of fathers for children born before March 4th 2013 may not be registered, some fathers may disappear from their children’s lives despite their names being known registered and some women choose not to register a father on the birth certificate (see [2-4]). In this article, ‘father’ refers to a biological father unless otherwise stated. There are limitations to knowing ones father (the genitor] as this status is not obviously determined by a natural process of giving birth as with the mother (the genetrix) 

Some children who grew up not knowing their father seek to find them and may reclaim their paternal identity by changing their surnames as a father’s surname is considered important in many African communities [2, 6-10]. There is no cultural pureness or authenticity in the practice of surnames in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, surnames carry significance in cultural personal identity, while problems around surnames seem to create a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction and feelings of disenfranchisement among some Africans [10-12]. For children born out of wedlock, acknowledgement of paternal responsibility for the pregnancy sometimes links to the child taking on the father’s name.

Traditional rituals, such as imbeleko, are performed on the father’s side to introduce the child to their paternal

Guest on the line: Dr Mpumelelo Ncube -HoD & Senior Lecturer Dept. of Social Work University of the Free State

Guest on the line: Penny Milner-Smyth of Ethicalways

Tonight we continue with our monthly focus on insights and ideas for promoting integrity in all spheres of our society.

Tonight we are starting a discussion about a topic that can affect us all, fraud. It is an age old but growing threat, which means we need to understand it.

How does the subject of fraud fit in to our previous discussions about unethical and corrupt activity?