Steven Friedman
About Me...
Steven Friedman is a public commentator and an academic, currently employed as a Research Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He has been writing on South African politics for the entire democratic period both as a scholar and public commentator. He has published books on South Africa’s transition to democracy, the role of the trade union movement, and current South African politics. He has also written columns and articles for several South African newspapers. His writing seeks to use academic research to shed light on current politics but to ensure that this is conveyed in a way easily understood by people who have no academic training.
Welcome To Against The Tide
Against the Tide is an emailed column commenting on current South African politics and, occasionally, on events elsewhere in the world. It aims to offer a different perspective from mainstream news and commentary by looking beneath the surface and, where necessary, challenging much of the thinking in South Africa’s public debate.
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Latest ArticleS
Politics For The Cameras
IF political theatre is your thing, you need to stick to the script.
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Are They Listening Now?
THERE are times when national alarm at something which is going badly wrong may show that things are really getting better. Now may be one of them.
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When ‘Merit’ Means ‘People Like Us’
FOR the leader of the Democratic Alliance, ‘merit appointment’ is hiring people who claim that ‘Bantu people, much like Arabs, are not democratic people’ and question whether protestors really were murdered by police at Sharpeville in 1960.
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Speaking Truth About Power
TWO myths have been exploded by the absence of load shedding for around five months. This should change the national debate but probably will not.
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Old Articles
A Colonial White Paper
THE Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, would no doubt be horrified to be called a champion of colonial thinking. So would many whose loud voices agree with him. But that is exactly what they are.
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Applying To Be Human?
WHY do we take it for granted that human beings should stand in a line and fill out forms to claim one of our most basic rights?
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