Focus 55 Chapters

Right of Reply

Pallo Jordan goes round in circles in his caricature of my book, seeking to reduce it to a simplistic conspiracy theory which no one can seriously entertain.

The Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals

The Poverty of Ideas is a gigantic failure. It claims to be about intellectuals’ retreat within the South African democracy. It is not. Instead, it hosts a number of pieces that do not, as a collection, adequately speak to the book’s overall inspiration.

The Poverty of Ideas: South African Democracy and the Retreat of Intellectuals

The editors of this volume, William Gumede, author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (2005) and Leslie Dikeni, a Research Associate at the Department of International Politics at the University of Pretoria, decry what they call the retreat of intellectuals since the advent of democracy in 1994.