Thought Leader showcases the best in opinion and insight from around the continent. To support the Mail & Guardian, subscribe here.

#TshwaneUnrest. That’s the hashtag that South African twitter chose to bookmark the biggest, most sustained public violence in the 22 years since the advent of democracy. Unrest? It seems that there’s ...

The world’s super-teacher, Ron Clark, recently told CNN how he “met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state”. “She was loved and adored by all but she told me ...

Last week, archaeologists unearthed a seal impression bearing the inscription “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah” near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Hezekiah — Chiskiya HaMelech — is ...

One clue to understanding the difference between modernism, postmodernism and poststructuralism lies in the ancient “quarrel” between Parmenides and Heraclitus. Parmenides argued that only being is, ...

These are lyrics from Umanji’s 1999 hit song Moloi which translates to “The witch” or simply “witch”. A loose translation of some of the lines is: “When they see an old woman/grandmother, being ugly, ...

Vusi Gumede worked for the South African government in various capacities and in different departments for 12 years. He has been an academic since 2010. He has held various professorships, fellowships ...

I’m absolutely amazed at Mosiuoa Lekota’s recent condemnation of a lack of democracy in the ruling African National Congress, as one of the major reasons for his leading role in the formation of the ...

I’ve often thought that many name change critics approach the debate with a certain intellectual dishonesty. Most of the time I hear that South Africa should not change a name of a city, road, river ...

It could be argued that the conceptualisation of gender equality is subjective and perhaps even relative because of the varied perspectives from which it is understood. For this reason, the debate ...

It’s familiar news by now. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century.

Near the beginning of the 2014 thought-provoking science fiction film, Transcendence (directed by Wally Pfister2014), one of the main characters, Max Waters (Paul Bettany), walks into and through a ...