You featured the plight of Walter Sisulu University, formerly Unitra, whose academic standards are high but affected by a lack of accommodation for students (June 27). And in your June 29 edition, an academic with a PhD reacted, blaming the ANC's ineptitude as the fundamental cause of WSU's problem.
Now (July 6) it is Unisa's Puleng LenkaBula, vice-chancellor, in wasteful expenditure doing what WSU decries and thus making me wonder whether there is a vendetta against institutions of higher learning, with the ANC again being the common denominator.
Yet education, higher learning in particular but whose strength is defined by primary learning further strengthened by secondary education, is the backbone of our national economy. Until the ANC sees education as the major economic tool for economic reconstruction, our country will toss and turn like a ship without a rudder. Ours will remain the ocean of despair and economic stagnation.
QwaQwa, through the QwaQwa Development Corporation (QDC), had an economic development plan put in place by Uniqwa, whose economic sciences produced graduates who are today running the Land Bank and the Industrial Development Corporation. Fani Titi, Investec's CEO, is a product of a QwaQwa high school, Fort Hare University and lectured maths at Uniqwa, thus demonstrating the value of education in economic development (but reconstruction in our case because we now have to start from scratch).
ANC, wake up!
— Moikwatlhai Seitisho, Phuthaditjhaba
Death by rusty razor
I read Makhudu Sefara’s article on circumcision with interest. I have been writing for the past 40 years on healthy young men going into the bush only to come out either maimed or dead after botched circumcisions. But nothing changes. We have evolved over the years and it is unbelievable that an operation such as this should be done by an unqualified person with a rusty razor blade.
Jews and Muslims do it but you never hear of a botched operation or a death so that must tell the traditional leaders something is wrong with their system. One letter I wrote elicited a response from a traditional leader who said: “Leave our culture and customs alone. We will continue to do what we want.” That says it all.
Parents need to say enough is enough and not let our young men and women go to these schools. But as usual in South Africa, I don’t hold my breath. We have never learnt from our mistakes
— Barbie Sandler, via e-mail
We don’t care for our young men, we only care for our so-called culture. We have one of the highest GBV crime rates in the world, so what exactly are the traditional leaders teaching these young men? Nothing as far as I can see.
Also, why are these circumcision schools allowing the boys to have no water in the heat of summer so some die of dehydration? Why are beatings allowed and for what reason? What is this teaching them except for anger at the perpetrators?
The whole system fails us and it's time the government put a stop to these schools and brought in a better system. Where else in the world would healthy young men be allowed to die like this or have to live their whole lives with no penis?
I also see that, though it is illegal, circumcision schools are starting up for young girls.
Parents need to say enough is enough and not let our young men and women go to these schools. But as usual in South Africa, I don’t hold my breath. We have never learnt from our mistakes.
— Barbie Sandler, via e-mail
Police rotting from the top
The arrests of senior intelligence officers and the continued killings in the country show we are still far from finding a permanent solution to the horrible spectre of crime. That so many senior police officers have scandals hovering over their heads yet nothing is done to root them out baffles my mind.
The rot starts from the head and the head of the presidential unit was never censured for his role in the Phala Phala (dollars in the couch) matter, and he continues to occupy the same position. It seems the friendship between criminal suspect and senior police never stopped with Jackie Selebi and Glenn Agliotti.
Even the notorious Donavan Krecjir had police as his co-accused. The abuse of the so-called slush funds is the result of the fact that the reports on its activities are strictly prohibited.
Richard Mdluli, when the streets of Soshanguve were turned into a war zone, used it to employ his relatives and children. Criminals in this country are not the smartest but they have been given a free rein thanks to the appointment of a 29-year-old as a brigadier with no expertise in crime prevention.
The security cluster is increasingly becoming a threat to of our democracy.
— Junior Nthane, Tshwane
SA needs more Gerard Sekotos
I spent a quiet Sunday afternoon wandering through an art gallery in Pretoria and soon found myself standing in front of Gerard Sekoto’s Poverty in the Midst of Plenty — a painting so haunting, so brutally honest, that it reached into the deepest parts of my soul and pulled out a sob. I wept.
I wept not only for the truth Sekoto captured with his brush but for the greater tragedy unfolding in the country that birthed him. A country that once stood tall even under the cruelty of apartheid, but now, under the ANC, stumbles like a drunkard in daylight — mocked by the world, a shadow of itself, a joke too sick to laugh at.
Since 1994, the promise of liberation has turned to ash. Never before in our history have we seen such towering unemployment. Never before have our streets been this dangerous. The “new dawn” brought nothing but hunger, desperation and fear. The numbers don't lie: poverty and crime have exploded under the rule of those who swore to set us free.
Greatness is discovered in discipline, creativity, contribution and moral courage
— Chris Kanyane, via e-mail
And in the middle of this reflection stood Sekoto — a man untouched by the hands of the ANC. A black South African genius whose brilliance the world celebrated, not because of slogans, but because of substance. He never drank from the poisoned chalice of political power. He chose the path of beauty, discipline, truth.
Sekoto was a Renaissance mind — an intellectual, a philosopher with a paintbrush. His canvases were sermons. His colours, indictments. His very life refutes the cheap narrative that the ANC has long peddled: that they alone are the saviours of the black soul. Sekoto proved that greatness, morality and dignity do not require political affiliation — they require courage and conviction.
The ANC has become a machine of excess. Where Sekoto gives beauty to the world, they take from it. Where he lived modestly, they gorge themselves in conspicuous consumption. While he laboured to uplift humanity, they scheme to enrich themselves.
South Africa doesn’t need more slogans. It needs soul. It needs a cleansing — of corruption, of greed, of mediocrity. It needs to be freed not from apartheid but from the curse that followed it.
Let this be said without fear: To thrive again, South Africa must walk away from the ANC — just as Sekoto did, long before the rot began.
Greatness is discovered in discipline, creativity, contribution and moral courage.
The true builders of nations are not those who chant destruction, but those who rise quietly with a purpose — to heal, to shape, to create and to elevate humanity beyond tribal bitterness.
Long before the world spoke of “representation”, Sekoto was painting his people — not as victims but as full human beings. When apartheid deepened its grip, Sekoto left the country in 1947 for Paris, where he lived in exile for the rest of his life. But even far from home, he painted with his heart tied to the soil of South Africa.
And today, the world remembers him as one of South Africa’s greatest sons.
— Chris Kanyane, via e-mail
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.