ARTICLE: FINDING A NEEDLE OF HOPE IN THE HEYSTEK OF DESPONDENCY
2014-11-19
The Foundation has been asked by a number of friends to comment on Magnus Heystek’s recent, very gloomy, article about South Africa’s prospects.
The Foundation has been asked by a number of friends to comment on Magnus Heystek’s recent, very gloomy, article about South Africa’s prospects.
16 November is the United Nations’ International Day for Tolerance.
One of the contributions that we South Africans can make to the international community is to show that even the most bitter, complex and intractable problems can be solved peacefully, through negotiations.
It is a great pleasure for me to be able to participate in the opening of the International Peace Bureau’s Making Peace exhibition in Cape Town.
One hundred and sixty-six years ago, in 1848, Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that “A spectre is haunting Europe. It is the spectre of communism”.
In comments that he is reported to have made at a luncheon yesterday, President Zuma apparently asked why there was so much criticism over state expenditure on his personal residence at Nkandla, if the state had been prepared to build an airport for PW Botha in George in 1977?
He also pointed out that he lived in official accommodation without paying rent and that he made use of official aircraft without having to pay the costs involved. Were these unfair benefits, he asked? When it was pointed out that Nkandla was his own personal property he asked whether it was not the state’s duty to protect the president and the deputy president?
I would like to share some thoughts with you this morning on leadership and on how everyone – not just leaders – can make a difference.
#WeAreHere. Yes we are. With the suspension of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates the decision was taken not to allow the conversation to be silenced in South Africa. The event has been renamed, rebranded and reignited. Now known as the Global Youth Peace Indaba the conversations will most definitely be happening from 13 – 15 October, right here in South Africa!
In a statement issued today, the President’s spokesman, Mac Maharaj, has taken “strong exception to the attack on the South African government by the Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Ms Patricia de Lille”, because “she blamed government for the cancellation of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Laureates.”