The th!nc Foundation

  "At the king’s command, they removed from the quarry( D ) large blocks of high-grade stone( E ) to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram( F ) and workers from Byblos( G ) cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple." 1 Kings 5: 17-18  "In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel, or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built." 1 Kings 6:7 As we build the Association of Churches Ministers and Ministries (ACMM), we should do so, understanding the task as that of creating a more enormous Temple of God with greater responsibility and an all-encompassing mission. In its mission, the ACMM concludes 'thereby magnifying Christ. The magnifying of Christ in the greater Temple requires the craftsmanship of similar wisdom as one King Solomon used to build the temple of God. Arguably the largest man-made project in honor ...

         The year 2024 will find the South African voter and the country's Establishment with hard to make political decisions than it had been at any time since 1993, after the assassination of Chris Hani. We would be in the middle of the fiercest youth impatience with a reformist adult cohort of past liberation movement leaders and potentially in the middle of a non-racial social revolution that might combine the call for a General De la Rey, General Hertzog's South Africa first, an Anton Lembede type call for economic freedom now, a Robert Sobukweist Africa for Africans, and a Steve Bikoist South African Consciousness that redefines the country. There will be a diminished commitment to involvement with a global power complex that is hell-bent on keeping Africa the mineral extraction destination of everyone but Africans.   It will not be shocking if our politics will have as the dominant vector of analysis, 'what national interest is this decision in purs...

       Few societies, and those that did, it was after a rebellion or similar, have been able to rise above the imagination of those that lead them. In the same vein, the habits or lifestyles of leaders become the values of those they lead and, by extension, society. To understand how pathological the corruption crisis might be in South Africa, let us consider these deep cultural practices as a context for this rendition.   At a meeting with one of South Africa's influential leaders on and about the subject of corruption, the leader related a metaphor that has stuck with me as a prism from which I related everything about corruption and that leader, especially the leader's posture towards corruption. In fact, the metaphor convinced me that the leader disagreed with the (then emerging) definition of corruption and may have believed some of what political elites were accused of was unfair, given their positions about the metaphor. The story goes. In the villages, ...

         The interesting thing about post-conflict liberation is that although everyone agrees there should be the transformation of power relations in every aspect of society, very few, including those who take charge of power, decide on what should be transformed and to what end. What the struggle or war of liberation defined as 'freedom' is often not a subject of consensuses reached when the settlement is codified into an accord. The context of freedom becomes contested as its facile use might erode gains made. For this reason, there are instances in which the strengths and influence of acquired political power are ambiguous; you can cite the stop-start decisions about transformative industrialization in South Africa. There are also instances where the executive authority constituted as the prize of politics is being put to the test by the civil society litigation induced overreach of an otherwise on a rule of law understanding leaning curve judiciary, y...

            In his inaugural speech as the 9th King of the Zulus, King MisuZulu Ka Zwelithini spoke of the renewal, rebuilding, and unity of 'Isizwe sa MaZulu'. The platitudes in his speech were codes. Only those interior to the actual issues surrounding the contestation for the throne would have a decoding capability and respond accordingly.   In the emerging consensus that 'democracy should be defined as the arrangements with which a society agrees to govern or rule itself,' the Zulu Kingdom can arguably be classified as a democracy to the extent that those who are called Zulus have accepted the various authorities converging in the position of King. As a democracy-type or form, the Zulu Kingdom has, over the years it existed, carried the structures and systems of 'isizwe sa Mazulu' through time. It has built common interests that have become the currency of its politics and thus shaped those that share a common membership to it as a society and...

       As we exit the winter of having lost several Comrades to the pernicious hand of the COVID19 pandemic, it is difficult to accept the reality of death as just but normality in humanity without blame. Despite our knowledge that at birth, we began the race to our mortal demise, we have still not learned to accept that as poor in taste death is, it is still the heir of our human beings' wealth.   With its ugliest and hated musk, the best of death's worst is that it will indeed have its day on all of us, including those we least expect it would. Our characterization of each other as friends, comrades, brothers, mothers, uncles and loved ones is so valuable that our attachment to the other tends to make us believe in our non-existent immortality. The only aspect of ourselves that has a chance of being immortalized, our legacy, which nature has bequeathed to society, creates a sense of eternity that we have removed the possibility of dying. To this end, learning ...

         South Africa's liberation movement-dominated politics are entering a new phase, and politicians as practitioners, intellectuals, and voting citizens are pontificating about the future. The end of politics to liberate the people, the occupation of the political center stage by interests-driven politicians, the 'transactional character' of party politics, and the conflicting pulls of interests as the currency of modern-day politics, amongst others, are defining the moral firmament of politics as a human vocation. The scene is set for how politics in South Africa will turn out to be beyond the oncoming ANC elective conference in December 2022. The source of the new context of politics, mainly conflictual and self-interest driven, will neither be according to an ideological orientation nor sheer pragmatic societal development focus, but rather economic interests and self-aggrandizement. The great divisions among erstwhile comrades and the dominating sourc...