Steven Friedman

IN A healthy society, everyone is free to worship. But, if they worship judges and lawyers, the society may not stay healthy.

NO, a team of African Presidents will not end Russia’s war in Ukraine. But, if we don’t want to be caught up in a wave of ugly prejudice, we need to understand why.

NOT taking sides when world powers fight takes more thought than taking them. Which is why the government needs to get much better at being non-aligned.

IF you want to know whether you can trust a government’s accounts, you need an auditor. If you want to hold that government to account, you need democracy.

IF you think a game is worthwhile only if your side wins, you don’t really value the game. If the game in question is the legal system, you don’t grasp why we need courts.

IS democracy in this country also for people in the countryside where traditional leaders hold sway? The constitution says it is. But we now have a new reminder that the law and government policy seem to disagree.

THE SOUTH Africans whose opinions matter are obsessed with what angers them. Which is why Eskom still seems central to plans to guarantee power supply.

IN democracies, people are meant to tell politicians what to do – not simply to complain about what they do. Citizens in this country’s municipal areas don’t seem to have heard this.

SONG lyrics tell us that we don’t know what we have until it is gone. Sometimes, we don’t know what we have lost even when it is gone.

SOME South Africans have a taste for imported goods – and, right now, a favourite import for some is a prejudice against states which are not run by white people.