Voices from SA

Rebone Masemola is an anthropologist, a digital marketer and strategist, an activist and the founder of Woke PROJECT. 

Rebone established Woke PROJECT as  a space for people to share  intersectional narratives and share lived experiences.

She grew up with her grandparents in Limpopo before starting boarding school at the age of 12. She stumbled into anthropology be accident and we discussed how this pushed her into her career as a digital marketeer and brand strategist.

Rebone did a Ted Talk a few months ago entitled "Re-imagining radical protest" where she came out as an angry black woman using her anger as a weapon against toxic masculinity and the patriarchy. 

We spent some time discussing gender violence, toxic masculinity and her activism. Like so many activists I have spoken to she is always questioning her path and the impact of her actions. But non-action is not a possibility for her.

Lebohang is the Managing Director of the Four Rivers Trading Consultancy and a research fellow at the progressive think tank, The Trade Collective.

Her areas of interest include the regional political economy, globalization and the movement of people, among other things. She is a feminist and an Africanist and this perspective guides her research and analysis.

We had a wide-ranging discussion that started with a look at the mid-term budget review that was presented last week and went on to look  at the structure of the South African economy, the future of state-owned power utility Eskom and the need to resolve the land question.

Lebohang spoke about the right of all South Africans to relevant education and efficient medical care. 

It was a fascinating discussion that gave me new perspectives on the challenges facing efforts to restructure our economy and our society as a whole.

Chippy was one of my early guests on the podcast. He had recently published his first book, How To Steal A City which looked at state capture and ANC corruption in Nelson Mandela Bay.

His new book, A House Divided turns his attention to the City of Cape Town. What started out as a look at the mismanagement by the Democratic Alliance (DA) of the water crisis that rocked the city a few years ago became an investigation into party funding, property development and land policy as well as an insight into tensions between city officials and politicians, particularly Patricia de Lille who was mayor at the time.

We chatted about some of these issues but also about the current state of the DA, some of the difficult choices facing the ANC, and why he supports President Ramaphosa.

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Motlatsi embarked on a career as an academic, teaching philosophy, by chance, after flirting briefly with both medicine and law. 

Born and raised in Johannesburg she has been teaching at UNISA for five years. Her areas of academic interest include Ubuntu, social movements and ethics among other things.

We chatted about a number of things including the challenges of teaching in a distance/open learning environment, the decolonisation of knowledge acquisition and teaching, as well as the philosophy of ubuntu and the dynamic nature of social movements.

Dr Joel Modiri is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Pretoria.

His PhD thesis was entitled “The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A Study in Race, Law and Power in the ‘Afterlife’ of Colonial-apartheid”.

The central concern of his teaching and research relates to the development of a critical anti-racist post-conquest jurisprudence through which to contemplate possibilities for liberation, decolonisation and historical justice in South Africa and beyond. 

We had a fascinating, and inspiring discussion that touched on critical race theory and the work of the American academic derrick bell and the concept of interest convergence, the legacy of the ANC in the failure of the post-apartheid project in South Africa and the relevance of Steve Biko today.

Joel is controversial in some circles for his outspoken critique of the South African constitution which ha says failed to take into consideration race, and as a consequence the black south African experience, in its drafting.

Read academic papers by Joel Modiri here.

Niren Tolsi is an award-winning South African journalist,a former Ruth First Fellow and an avid cricket fan. He covers issues around social justice, the constitution, politics, and violence. He is a co-founder of the now defunct The Con, and and associate editor/writer for New Frame.

Our discussion focuses on a number of themes that emerge from some of his recent writing including a series  articles about South African cricketing great Hashim Amla, his 2018 Ruth First lecture  that focused on the state of the  South African media landscape, his ongoing work about the families of the miners massacred at Marikana in 2012, and a current project looking at politics and violence in kwaZulu-Natal.

So during our chat we spoke about the lack of transformation in sport, the media and business as well as the structure and nature of the South African media, and the state of the ANC through the violence in kwaZulu-Natal.

Read The Rainbow Beauty of Hashim Amla here.

The Meaning of Hashim Amla

Niren's Ruth First lecture.

Marikana

Prof Schutte is currently an associate professor of International Relations and Economics, and member of the post-graduate courses in World Political Economy and International Relations at the Federal University of Sao Paulo. He worked as an advisor to the Lula government(2004-2006), and has also been as a regional advisor to the World Bank among a host of diverse postings.

He was in Johannesburg a few weeks ago as the guest of the Mapongubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). He gave the MISTRA annual lecture on 4 September entitled "The age of unreason and ignominy – can we judge the people’s judgement?"

We chatted about a range of things including Prof Schutte's view on the state of the global left, some of the challenges facing young democracies like ourselves, the changing nature of work, South Africa and the BRICS and the coming battle for the global economy.

Read more about Prof Schutte here.

thought in the light of the current protests and public anger around the recurring issue of gender-based violence I would revisit an interview I published last year with Siya Jentile.  He is the founder and president of Not in My name, an NGO aimed at mobilising society, and men in particular, against gender-based violence.

In looking for some information to share with you about the scale and scope of the problem we face regarding this national catastrophe I was shocked at the dearth of up to date national statistics on the rape assault and murder of women in South Africa. One I found is that a woman is killed every three hours in this country. According to The World Health Organization (WHO), 12.1 in every 100 000 women are victims of femicide in South Africa each year – a figure which is five times worse than the global average of 2.6.

Another depressing figure I came across is that there were at least 55 rape complaints against police officers were investigated in the six months between April to September 2018, according to the 2018/19 annual report of the police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).

Get engaged, involved and active.

Find out more about Sonke Gender Justice, POWA or contact Siya.

I met Mohamed back in the mid-1980's when he was an organiser for the Chemical and Industrial Workers Union. Mohamed grew up in Umzinto on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast among desperately poor sugarcane workers. He has devoted his life to the struggle for social change and economic transformation in South Africa. 

Over the years he has worked in provincial government and in NGO's. I visited him in Cape Town where he lives with his family.

We had a wide-ranging chat about history and culture, the ongoing struggle for a more redistribute social and political model, and confronting race and racism in Cape Town.

Pooven Moodley grew up in Mandini, Northern KwaZulu-Natal in the shadows of a coal-powered paper mill. His lungs suffer from that childhood exposure to polluted air today.

We chat about his early activism fighting apartheid, he was on a Zululand Police hit list at one point, to his current work at Natural Justice.

Natural Justice ".. specialises in human rights and environmental law in Africa in pursuit of both social and environmental justice."

He touched on some of the recent community based campaigns Natural Justice has worked on, as well as a broader chat on the magnitude of the climate change catastrophe we are facing as a species. And the need for a drastic change int the way we live.

Read more about Natural Justice here.

Read about the Greenpeace Air Quality Report here.