Focus 55 Chapters

A Narrative My First-Generation Matric Journey

I made my first stab at schooling at the height of Mangope’s reign of the Bophuthatswana homeland, in Losasaneng village, the mining district of Taung. At that time Losasaneng village possessed only two schools, namely, Retshegeditse primary and Batlanang junior secondary school.

Review - Michael Cardo

Racial reconciliation and “rainbow nation”-building, the dominant themes of Nelson Mandela’s presidency, gave way to a narrow, self-regarding, racially hypersensitive strain of Africanism under Thabo Mbeki.

Review - Thabo Rapoo

This book, according to the author, began life as a doctoral thesis written in the 1980s – the first question that came to my mind was, why not do something new and fresh rather than recycling an old piece of work done twenty years ago?

Review - Bobby Godsell

Everatt tells the story of the role and relationship of individuals drawn from South Africa’s racial minorities (but in particular white) in the ANC-lead struggle to end white minority rule, in the period 1945 to 1960.

Issue Fourteen - March 2010 - Identity: Are there any South Africans?

The Foundation’s liveliest roundtable to date was held at the Johannesburg Country Club, 10 March 2010. The varied panel comprising Antjie Krog (Begging to be Black), Eusebius McKaiser (columnist and blogger), William Gumede (political analyst) and Ivor Chipkin (Do South African’s Exist?) provided provocative, contrasting and stimulating presentations.

Focus 57 - May 2010 - Change and Continuity: 100 Years of Statehood

This edition of Focus is dedicated to a series of reflections about 100 years of statehood in South Africa. In my invitation to contributors, I pointed out that the political events which led to Union are well documented and widely known; so was the deliberate marginalisation of the majority of South Africans during the deliberations that led to the establishment of Union in 1910. Indeed, it was this marginalisation which led to the formation of the ANC in 1912, and it was only after some 84 years after the foundation of the state, that a constitutional and political ‘normalisation’ and legitimacy were achieved.

Issue Fifteen - May 2010 - Sport, Nation Building and Development

The Helen Suzman Foundation in association with, the Open Society Foundation For South Africa, hosted another Quarterly Roundtable on Sport, Nation Building and Development. It was held at the Country Club Johannesburg in Auckland Park on Monday 31 May 2010. The Roundtable was attended by a cross section of the public and people currently working within the field of sports development research and community sporting initiatives.

Focus 58 - September 2010 - South Africa and the Changing World

The previous edition of Focus, dedicated to commemorating 100 years of Statehood, had as its theme, Change and Continuity. This theme of change and continuity could also characterise this edition of Focus, which is dedicated to South Africa and the Changing World.