The th!nc Foundation

The FIFA 2010 World Cup hosting by South Africa will go into history as an event that redefined the essence of being South African. The pre-June 11 preparations were to most of us seen within the prism of infrastructure and team readiness rather than national readiness. The built-up games that characterised our view of the national team and SAFA may have blinded us to see the national reawakening that was taking place as we approached the kick-off day. Our preparations were punctuated, as though it was through some divine and supernatural design, by the gladiatorial success of the Blue Bulls and the Stormers to host the all African super 14 final at Orlando Stadium. The significance of the rugby finals featuring a team that is a compulsory footnote in the history of South African Rugby became an announcement to the world that South Africa is not only technically ready but emotionally prepared. It will not be a surprise if some of the Blue Bulls fans that went to Orlando stadium were la...

The subject of political correctness is probably politically incorrect in itself. South Africa has a racial past that is toxic to all manner of discourse on any aspect of our co-existence as humans. The reasons for this toxicity can be traced to our developmental path as a nation that continues to entrench its race and ethnic based nationalism. The degree, to which we as a society are ready to confront our nationalist pasts and make them congruent to the rainbowism we are purporting to build, will be determinate on how politically correct or otherwise our discourse can be. In South Africa political correctness is directly linked to the race relations sub-context that society is avoiding to tackle. The absence of a platform or arena where ideas on how to neutralise the race based tensions that South Africans have to contend with on a daily basis make the nation-building assignment illusive for a number of reasons. Firstly, the South African nation-building project is more subjective and...