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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.

SOUTH AFRICA needs changes if politics is to serve all the people well. A new way of electing the people who make laws is not one of them.

CAN this country protect the rights of accused people without giving a free pass to the rich and connected few?

AS the country heads for perhaps the most interesting general election since 1994’s poll, don’t expect the national debate to help any of us understand this event and what it might mean. In the past few days, we were reminded of how out of touch with simple reality, and basic arithmetic, the mainstream voices we hear are.

HUMAN rights are called that for a reason – because they belong to all humans, not to a particular culture. And so it should go without saying that Africans are as entitled to them as every other person.

THE great South African nightmare has been shaping politics these past few days. It was stoked by the EFF’s ‘shutdown’ and the drama it set off in the heads of everyone who is anyone. And it is why an ordinary event was blown up into a threat which probably never existed.

NO-ONE seems to have noticed, but there is a huge hole in the Constitution which might create a political crisis after next year’s general elections.