Songz & Friends: #SundayConversations

2024 Is Here.

Happy New Year! 2024 marks 30-years since democracy. There have been six elections since. While there was progress for the first 13-years or so of democracy, we have since seen a terrible reversal of almost every major gain since. Unemployment is higher. Crime is worse. Mental health has declined and substance abuse is on the rise. But we cannot give up, and no one is coming to save us. This is the year of the citizen, where we stand up for the future we want, to be the leaders we need, and to build a legacy future generations can be proud of.

RISE Mzansi Launch Speech

On 19 April 2023 we introduced RISE Mzansi's vision and values for a better South Africa, as well as a comprehensive framework for how to achieve the South Africa we deserve. I delivered the keynote address on the day, following very powerful contributions by my colleagues. 

This episode is my keynote address on the day.

Loadshedding will not go away even if we march or sue in court

I accept that loadshedding is causing huge political cost to the ANC, so my mind says if they could solve it, they would have done so a long time ago. That we still have loadshedding means their government cannot end it. It also means that for whatever reason they cannot find people who can get the job done.

 

Some of us will be marching on the issue in the near future. My mindset is that this is to register political dissatisfaction and to make a political point. I do not expect that anything will change because I don't believe the ANC is not solving this issue simply because they don't believe we are angry enough. They know citizens are very angry, including their own members. They just can't solve it anymore!

We Must Protect Fort Hare from Thuggery

Last Saturday the Daily Dispatch reported that the Vice-Chancellor of the historic Fort Hare University, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, survived another assassination attempt in which his bodyguard was murdered. This revolting incident is not just an indication of the problems at Fort Hare, but the rest of the country.

Let us not make the same mistake we made during the last decade, which is to be silent and not support public servants who refuse to betray the  South African people.

Introducing the Rivonia Circle - in Audio

I am pleased to introduce the Rivonia Circle, a pioneering non-profit that will produce bold and much-needed ideas and solutions; and ethical, modernizing leaders for a new South African age. This is not an exercise in intellectual curiosity but a response to a deepening national crisis whose evidence mounts every single day.

 

Video Version is here: https://rivoniacircle.org 

Professor Mosa Moshabela of UKZN explains Covid-19 variants and how to stay safe

A new COVID-19 variant called Omicron was first sequenced by South African scientists in November. With this new variant, the number of new cases has multiplied on a daily basis, with a high positivity rate of more than 25%. We are now in a Fourth Wave of the pandemic, and understanding how variants emerge, their impact and how to stay safe are super critical. It's a long conversation but a very necessary one. Take a listen.

The Doctors: Drs Rozani & Gqoli dispel myths about Covid-19 vaccines and men problems

This is one of the most powerful conversations I've ever had. Medical doctors, Sangxa Rozani and Lonwabo Gqoli together with Neal Browning, a participant in successful Covid-19 trials spoke clearly and with conviction, dispelling some of the myths about how the Covid-19 vaccines cause erectile and other problems. 

The Shifting Sands of COVID-19 Disinformation

Having initially worried that we would not get vaccines soon enough, South Africa is now grappling with an unexpected problem, vaccine hesitancy that is partly fuelled by disinformation. We have to fight it in as many ways as we can because people's lives depend on it. Literally. 

Reflections on 25yrs of SA‘s Constitution with Judge Albie Sachs

2021 marks 25 years since the South African Constitution came into effect in 1996. The signing took place on Human Rights Day, a symbolic day given the history of the Sharpeville massacre as a representation of the bloodletting that had formed and deformed the country’s soul over the centuries.

I asked Judge Albie Sachs to reflect on how our constitution came into being as well as its meaning to South African life.

 

His career in human rights activism started at the age of seventeen, when as a second year law student at the University of Cape Town, he took part in the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign. Three years later he attended the Congress of the People at Kliptown where the Freedom Charter was adopted. He started practice as an advocate at the Cape Bar aged 21.

The bulk of his work involved defending people charged under racist statutes and repressive security laws. Many faced the death sentence. He himself was raided by the security police, subjected to banning orders restricting his movement and eventually placed in solitary confinement without trial for two prolonged spells of detention.

In 1966 he went into exile. After spending eleven years studying and teaching law in England he worked for a further eleven years in Mozambique as law professor and legal researcher. In 1988 he was blown up by a bomb placed in his car in Maputo by South African security agents, losing an arm and the sight of an eye.

During the 1980s working closely with Oliver Tambo, leader of the ANC in exile, he helped draft the organisation's Code of Conduct, as well as its statutes. After recovering from the bomb he devoted himself full-time to preparations for a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. In 1990 he returned home and as a member of the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive of the ANC took an active part in the negotiations which led to South Africa becoming a constitutional democracy. After the first democratic election in 1994 he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court.

In addition to his work on the Court, he has travelled to many countries sharing South African experience in healing divided societies. He has also been engaged in the sphere of art and architecture, and played an active role in the development of the Constitutional Court building and its art collection on the site of the Old Fort Prison in Johannesburg.

 

My conversation with him took place on Sunday, 19 September 2021. He began by telling me how he prepared for our conversation.

Local Government Elections 2021 - Law, Constitution & Electoral Procedures

In this episode we deal with the local government elections due to take place either in late October or the first 3 days of November by order of the Constitutional Court. I invited Dan Mafora of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, CASAC; Terry Tselane of the Institute of Electoral Management Services in Africa and a former Deputy Chari of the Electoral Commission; and Lulu White – founder and Chief Executive of the Elections Management Agency of Africa.