The th!nc Foundation

God's relationship with man is one of the most complex in the history of humanity. This relationship has been nurtured, cultivated, or curated by the institution of the Church. In the Kingdom of God, the Church is the city, village, commune, township, or organised community with its laws, bureaucracy, and authority with which human souls are marshalled to salvation. It operates as an institutional firmament under which human arrangements govern each other with the purpose of preparing for the afterlife by living the present in a way that guarantees a possible ticket to a promised heaven.  What keeps members of the church together as an institution is their membership in the enterprise of seeking life with God. The pursuit of eternal life holds the church together. The sanity of society comes with the connections between natural and supernatural orders society subjects itself. The goodness of the church, and whence its eternal appeal to humanity, is its enduring capability to watch ...

The governing party convened a meeting at the University of the Western Cape to start a dialogue on coalition government arrangements. The "anyone but the ANC" posture taken by the opposition complex, which has plunged local government into a governance crisis, was a reawakening to the ANC of the leader of society role it still commands in South Africa. The coalition dialogue was thus about how to contest political power without collapsing the capability of the state to deliver goods and services.  Despite all the speeches, press statements, and summits on coalitions, including high-level secret meetings between parties, the governing party has not yet answered the essential question: What outcome do they seek in the coalition dialogue? The truth is that the South African electoral system gives political parties an advantage to contest for state power; the interests and mandates voters give them will define coalitions. Despite the court ruling on the rights of individuals to ...

In the wake of corruption assuming a pandemic growth, contemplating a crisis, fragile, or failed -state environment is now real. Scholars, public policy practitioners, civil society bodies, and the country's leadership in general have reached a consensus that after racism and apartheid, corruption is the new crime against human development. The brittle leadership decisiveness, either because it is compromised or in a context of sheer incapability, procure for strategic policy shifts or interventions to fight the scourge.  In a democratic dispensation like South Africa, corruption is seen as a breeding ground of conduct that is at variance with the founding values defining the South Africa we all want. The brazen state of looting and patronage creates a trust deficit between the investor community on the one hand and the state on the other.  The several incidents ventilated at the various commissions of enquiry stand as evidence of a country that was under a siege of corruption...

Let this rendition start by congratulating Matshela Koko and others for the courage to say, 'We are not what they say we are'. It is a statement loaded with a consciousness of self that will be liberatory to many executives in South Africa who have been silenced by the noise covering the lies and not the calm that is a firmament over the truth of and about black executives.  John Rawls teaches that "justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought". As a society, we need a shared conception of justice, even if we differ in definition. In that way, we can live together in a stable, efficient and coordinated society. A public conception of justice should constitute the fundamental character of a well-ordered human association. As a (democratic) society, we must also mature as human beings. It is true that as we come together in a society, we experience an alignment of interests because social cooperation offers benefits for all and c...

The South African Constitution is the supreme source of law. It legalises a non-racial, non-sexist, united, and democratic South Africa. It commits the State to recognise the injustices of the past, heal the divisions of that past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice, and human rights. It obliges all elected representatives to ensure that the government is based on the people's will.  The Constitution “provides a sustainable bridge between the past of a deeply divided society characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice and a future it entrenches as the non-negotiable source of legislative, judicial, and executive authority. It articulates the obligations of all legal persons to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights. It is the legal basis for the state to execute a project of transforming society in all respects”.  It follows, therefore, that after centuries of land dispossessions and racial di...

THE THRUST OF THIS POST WAS PUBLISHED IN THE SUNDAY TIMES OF 19 NOVEMBER 2023. THIS IS AN UNEDITED VERSION.  The thought of a less than 50% performance by all the parties contesting for elections is tantamount to thinking of South Africa in post-ANC-as-governing-party terms. Opinion polls about the 2024 national and provincial elections converge at less than 50% performances by all registered political parties. As a result, the discourse is now about coalition government permutations. The national elephant in the room discourse of answering the question ‘'Are we ready for a post-ANC-as-governing-party South Africa?' is relegated to hush-hush affair, and it never gets to a point when the nation openly engages the question. Since 2016, fierce debates between academics and scholars emerged over the looming inevitability of a post-ANC government in South Africa. Dominant scenarios reflect, at worst, a complete change of the government of the day in the national sphere and, at the l...

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other", writes Charles Dickens in his celebrated work, A Tale of Two Cities. In articulating disdain for apartheid, a crime against humanity, Capetonians were once again seen united in one of the biggest marches in recent history. The organisation prowess which went into the march had the common characteristics of the unity of South Africa's clergy represented by the erudite Rev Allan Boesak, invocation of the Mandela surname as a node to express the depth of injustice in Palestine represented by Mandla Mandela, and the resuscitation of the ANC-as-liberation movement represented by Fikile Mbalula. The message from the march was an unequivocal repudiation of the apartheid character of how the State of Israel and the global axes of non-white lives do not matter, headquartered in Washington, have been and still treat the people of Palestine. In Dickens ...