The th!nc Foundation

 Published in the Sunday Times , 12 October 2025, as The true test of Mkhwanazi’s evidence General Mkhwanazi has crafted a space for himself as an opinion maker in the management and direction of policing in South Africa . He has assumed an authority status on police practice in a country where shallow policy understanding rules professional spaces. Endowed with the moral force of fighting criminality and the syndicates that sustain it, he has accumulated sufficient social capital to be a towering moral voice on policing, and by default, the essence of public service. His command of policing practice and theory earned him the endearment of an otherwise politically leadership-deficient society.  While Mkhwanazi has raised several thematic issues regarding the administration of the state, he comes across as a well-groomed securocrat . By his own admission, he reveres the securocratic approach to policing, which was his foundational training and socialisation as a police offic...

There are moments in the life of a nation when society has to answer the question, are we on track, and can we go over the stresses we are subjected to by certain of the truths we are or have been living with? As we search for answers, events like the Chairman’s Conversation , amongst a few, create moments for selected leadership breeds to be foregrounded, and facilitated to say to the nation, ‘relax, we are on track’. These moments reassure us and inspire us with the leadership and resilience they highlight.   In the vocabulary of Nobel Laureate in literature Toni Morrison , these events have become friends to our minds. They gather us as a society, gather the pieces we have become, and give them back to us in the right order. Through the conversation between Given Mkhari and Adrian Gore of Discovery at Discovery Place , we discovered the inner person of ‘ Mr AG ’ and that “the function of freedom is to free” others.   Through the lens of ‘AG’, South Africa was reimagi...

Published in TimesLife 08 October 2025 The succession debate in the ANC has not officially opened but is raging. It requires no rocket scientist to see that the Deputy President is nowhere near a point where he can be declared uncontested, despite the advantage of established convention. Notwithstanding that being the President of the Republic, as the prize of being ANC President , is no longer as guaranteed, a faith-based contest has begun.  There are two December 16 dates to go through before the next ANC elective conference. There is a National General Council , generally seen as the litmus test of where the wind is blowing. Compounding this will be the outcome of the consequential 2026 or 2027 Municipal Elections . Embedded in the 52 Regional Conferences of the ANC is a subtle process of consolidating endorsements by the ANC’s leaders at the centre of the contest. These regional conferences play a crucial role in the succession battle, as they serve as platforms for leaders...

The ANC is like an ocean. Its ecosystem includes all sorts of political creatures . The ANC generates tsunamis like it generates the waves surfers would wish for. It contains sharks, dolphins, whales, snakes, salmon, turtles, sardines, and several other exotic and dangerous marine species in an ocean.  It can wash ashore whatever it no longer needs, since it is inviting to everything it needs. If you are deep within it and find persons unworthy of the ANC, rest assured that the ocean is seeking the best method and, most importantly, the shoreline to discard them. Unless you are inside and observe the workings of this non-biotic organism with characteristics and members like the ANC, you will not see this magic.    The ANC has been around multiple times before, and it is nearing its 114th year. It has survived the toughest political trials, during which sacrificing one’s life for its cause was sometimes seen as a noble act. Besides fighting for freedom as the ...

Published in TimesLive 02 October 2025 Once South Africa begins to understand the chasm that separates policing’s insiders from outsiders, it can start to appreciate the need to design the normative bridges necessary to address criminality in all its forms. The Madlanga Commission is beginning to reveal systemic governance dysfunctions not limited to the South African Police Service . So far, the submissions to the commission have demonstrated an abstraction of a larger issue.  General Mkhwanazi’s historic media conference appears to have been a bureaucratic retaliation against the complex infiltration of the criminal justice system . Those targeted were criminal syndicates and certain political, cognitive legal, and criminal justice system elites and operatives.    Central to the resistance is testing the extent to which police officers and the public service in general can, without repercussions, survive if they refuse to obey unlawful orders from executive autho...

Godfrey Nkosi writes for us It is one of those sleepless nights when the mind refuses to rest. The hours are consumed by reflection on matters that trouble the organisation, and perhaps that is the very reason for the lack of sleep. In the quiet of such moments, one cannot help but return to the ANC ’s seminal discussion document, Through the Eye of the Needle ? When the ANC published this document in 2001, it was not written for decoration. It was born out of anxiety within the movement itself, a recognition that the transition from opposition to incumbency brought grave temptations. The ANC had entered government, commanded state resources, and faced the dangers the liberation movement had always warned about. Leadership contests were becoming intense, money was beginning to find its way into lobbying, and patronage networks threatened to erode the movement’s integrity. At the heart of this was a call for humility and sacrifice in leadership, a reminder that to lead was not to gain ...