http://www.sairr.org.za Welcome to the weekly newsletter of the South African Institute of Race Relations. hourly 1 2008-03-10T12:56:41Z http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-take-charge-mr-president-5th-february-2009 By the end of 2007 it had become clear that Jacob Zuma would become South Africa’s president. It appeared at the time that one of his stronger attributes as president would be his leadership ability. This was an ability he had demonstrated on a number of occasions in political spheres ranging from post-1994 KwaZulu-Natal to peace negotiations in central Africa. However with every passing week he seems to be less and less able to exercise effective leadership over his party and his government. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2010-02-04T08:32:11Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-whither-the-whites-29th-january-2010 White South Africans are quick to complain that affirmative action and black economic empowerment policies have stymied their career opportunities and chances of economic advancement in South Africa. Curiously, however, a review of income and employment indicators for the country does not bare this out. Rather there is now some evidence that the white community may turn out to be an inadvertent beneficiary of the Government’s various empowerment and affirmative action policies. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2010-01-29T06:14:50Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-our-sports-teams-in-black-and-white-22nd-january-2010 Advocates of ‘representivity’ will be up in arms to learn that none of South Africa’s top three sporting codes is living up to the ideal of a perfect ‘racially representative’ society. A review of South Africa’s most recent cricket, rugby, and soccer squads reveals that not one of South Africa’s race groups makes up the ‘correct’ proportion of any national team. The fact that the general public appears not to be bothered gives the lie to the oft asserted claim that our society should strive to be ‘representative’. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2010-01-21T14:26:55Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-how-vulnerable-is-south-africa2019s-soccer-world-cup-to-a-major-terrorist-attack-14th-january-2009 The attack by Cabindan separatists on Togo’s soccer team at the current Africa Cup of Nations tournament in Angola has created some controversy about safety surrounding the soccer World Cup to be staged in South Africa later this year. A number of analysts and newspaper editorials have dismissed concerns at terror attacks in South Africa. Soccer authorities have called the idea ‘stupid’ and one newspaper even went as far as to suggest it was ‘racist’. However there is some evidence to suggest that a risk does exist. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2010-01-14T06:44:29Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-matric-results-no-surprises-7th-january-2010 The latest matric results released today show that South Africa is still struggling to provide a satisfactory education to its school-leavers. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2010-01-07T14:15:17Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-a-year-in-numbers-2013-17th-december-2009 In almost every respect 2009 was a most successful year for the Institute. We produced the widest range of research publications on the country out of all of South Africa’s policy organizations. These generated significant debate and media coverage. In tough financial circumstances we grew our client base and returned very pleasing financial results. Below follow some of the numbers that went into making 2009 a very good year at the Institute. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-12-17T12:40:29Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-rethinking-the-inequality-risk-11th-december-2009 Inequality between African South Africans is as great a political risk factor for South Africa as inequality between race groups. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-12-11T07:06:37Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-taxpayers-and-social-welfare-4th-december-2009 A comparative analysis of employment, tax, and welfare data shows that while more South Africans are paying individual income tax those taxpayers are also supporting more people on social welfare. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-12-04T06:59:53Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-empowerment-which-disempowers-25th-november-2009 Yesterday morning John Kane-Berman delivered the following address to the Solidarity trade union in Pretoria. The text of the address is published as a somewhat early edition of our weekly column SAIRR Today. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-11-25T06:51:18Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-genocide-is-a-charge-too-far-20th-november-2009 The minister of health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has blamed Thabo Mbeki and his administration for the Aids pandemic in South Africa. Dr Motsoaledi referred to a report that South Africa had 0.7% of the world’s population but 17% of people infected with HIV and Aids. The Young Communist League has gone even further and called for Thabo Mbeki and his health minister to be charged with genocide. Data the Institute has published in its annual South Africa Survey this month shows the extent of the death and suffering inflicted on black South Africans by the Mbeki administration’s HIV and Aids policies. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-11-20T09:35:04Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-implementing-peoples-war-13-november-2009 When former state president FW de Klerk in February 1990 unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies, he believed he was laying the foundation for a process of ‘good faith’ negotiations in which all parties would be committed to peace, mutual compromise for the common good, and respect for agreements reached. But, the ANC never had any intention of regarding negotiations in the same way. Instead it saw constitutional talks as nothing more than an additional ‘terrain of struggle’: an adjunct to the people’s war it had been implementing since the Sebokeng unrest in September 1984. The ANC’s strategy was a variant on the Trojan Horse one, for it used its professed commitment to peace to secure the legal return of its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, thus bypassing the difficulties it had always faced in infiltrating its insurgents illegally. It then refused to disarm or demobilise Umkhonto, instead using its combatants to step up the people’s war in all its aspects. The ANC’s persistence with its people’s war in the early 1990s – at a time when De Klerk had already thrown open the door to a non-racial South Africa and repealed all major apartheid laws – cost a further 15 000 lives, three times the number killed in the first five years of the people’s war. Almost all those killed were neither policemen, soldiers, nor insurgents, but rather ordinary civilians, most of them black. In this address, delivered in Johannesburg on 10th November 2009, Anthea Jeffery summarises some of the key points from her book People’s War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa, recently published by Jonathan Ball. No publisher Frans Cronje SAIRR today newsletter 2009-11-12T14:17:59Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-the-new-2018whites2019-6th-november-2009 Whereas prosperous white South Africans are often denigrated by the Government and the African National Congress (ANC), the new black elite are often portrayed as an example of progress in our society. That has been a peculiar distinction for the Government and the ANC to maintain. There is now some evidence to suggest that attitudes in the ruling alliance may be shifting. No publisher Frans Cronje Institute opinion SAIRR today newsletter ANC 2009-11-05T05:57:54Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-sairr-today-gordhan2019s-gamble-30th-october-2009 While the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement has been well received by the financial and business press it does harbour a risk of South Africa confronting a debt-trap scenario at some point in the next decade. Considering the risks and the difficulty of predicting the country’s future GDP growth trajectory, history might find that the government erred in its fiscal response to the economic downturn. No publisher Frans Cronje Cosatu ANC Budget Institute opinion Economic growth Budget Deficit Corruption SAIRR today newsletter 2009-10-30T06:59:08Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-statement-on-professor-jonathan-jansen-22nd-october-2009 Last Friday Professor Jonathan Jansen was inaugurated as the rector and vice chancellor of the University of the Free State. Professor Jansen was also recently appointed as the president of the South African Institute of Race Relations. At his inauguration Professor Jansen made a speech about the future of the University of the Free State. The university is an extraordinary case in that it is a public institution that has come to represent ideals at odds with the equality, human dignity, and equal opportunity central to South Africa becoming an equal and prosperous society. It requires dramatic intervention in order to align it with those ideals. Professor Jansen has provided the university with a roadmap to meet those ideals. The path that he has charted for the University of the Free State also contains many the elements necessary for the success of our country. These range from the importance of leadership to the vexed issue of transformation. Inherent in the professor’s address was the message that human endeavor and hard work was necessary to overcome adversity. No publisher Frans Cronje 2009-10-22T14:03:41Z News Item http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-the-peculiar-case-of-the-sakhile-voter-15th-october-2009 For fifteen years South Africans have been able to freely elect their government. But many communities, such as that in Sakhile outside Standerton, behave as if the ANC is an illegitimate regime. These communities are increasingly resorting to violence to get the Government’s attention. In most cases they turn to violence despite the legitimate democratic channels that are open to them to address their grievances. The government and the ANC are therefore quite correct not to tolerate such lawlessness and to deploy the security forces to crack down hard on any community that threatens violence against the State. No publisher Frans Cronje Institute opinion Corruption Elections ANC 2009-10-15T11:10:38Z News Item