Latest news with #Marikana
The Citizen
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Afrika Tikkun celebrated its talent day at DP World Wanderers Stadium
Smiles, cheers, and jubilation filled the DP World Wanderers Stadium on July 26 during Afrika Tikkun's talent day. The talent day is a chance for 3 000 children from different Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres around Gauteng to come together to show their talents. Afrika Tikkun is a South African non-profit organisation transforming the lives of children and youth from cradle to career. Also read: Scouts welcome Johannesburg Children's Home for weekend of fun and friendship The talent day was made up of sporting activities, including netball, soccer, running, and dance competitions. Afrika Tikkun's CEO, Marc Lubner, explained that although there were prizes for winners, every single child present would receive a prize. 'The Talent Day Initiative started approximately 12 years ago; we were a much smaller organisation. We've got a new group that's here today from Marikana, which is part of our latest outreach programme.' Lubner added that the NPO has begun to engage with children with disabilities in an inclusion programme. 'So rather than keeping the disabled children separate, we involve the children in mainstream.' Follow us on our Whatsapp channel, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok for the latest updates and inspiration!
IOL News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
An Open Letter to Pieter Kriel: Understanding Whiteness and Privilege in Bethlehem
South African social media personality Pieter Kriel. Image: X / @pieterkrielorg Pieter Kriel, the 21-year-old South African TikTok figure whose rise has been built on rapid-fire ChatGPT slogans about whiteness and Black pain, now saunters around the edges of Palestine, a land of grief, siege, and survival, setting the scene for his latest TikTok performance. From a cushioned chair in a Bethlehem hotel, he posted to his followers: 'Bethlehem is a sacred cage where the world comes to worship a baby born under empire, yet ignores the children growing up under occupation.' This is not OK. Pieter Kriel's post on X. Image: Screenshot / X That is why, Pieter, I am writing to you directly. As a prominent race justice activist, I know the terrain you are striding through, though you do not yet understand the weight of it. I know the ego that grows from the eros, the praise, poured onto those whites who appear to 'get it'. I know how easy it is to mistake applause for wisdom, to let your platform slip from truth into arrogance or paternalism. But when I came into the public eye, I was not twenty-one. By then I was already married to my life partner, Sipho Singiswa, raising a biracial child, learning to grapple with whiteness not as abstract theory but as intimate daily reality inside a Black family. Before those years, in the 1980s, when I was your age, I was a cultural activist. I was signing leases for suburban communes where Black musicians and artists could live, places where they could step into the economy of town performances under the nose of apartheid law. When we were evicted, we found another lease and carried on. I gravitated to the jazz and political underground, where people of all skin shades gathered, defying the disgusted gaze of the white state. Later, I trudged through township streets and squatter camps, walked through communities ravaged by mines and extractive industries, documenting harm, holding a camera for those whose voices were buried under power. I spent years doing video advocacy in places that were ignored and erased. I had this access because I was working alongside Sipho. It was Sipho who sat for hours, listening to the stories of Marikana widows, miners, and children who had lost their fathers in the massacre, listening in their own language, with no interpreter, no posture, no spectacle. It was then that I realised I was far more useful behind the scenes, as the film editor, shaping the testimony we gathered, rather than imposing my whiteness onto a landscape where my presence was just white skin — interruptive, uncomfortable, a distortion. There is a violence in forcing people to speak the pain caused by white power in the presence of whiteness. Learn when to step out, Pieter. After I took race justice and critical race theory to newspapers, I quickly ended up with two files fat with death threats and smear campaigns, now retired into archives at the SAHRC. I have been followed, stalked, recorded, threatened, and destabilised by the far right. I have been no-platformed by the liberal gatekeeping class, rendered ungovernable and untouchable by the very institutions that claim to champion freedom. But I never centred that. I did not have the energy to, and I did not have the resources to fight this. Our work was never monetised. I am only naming it now because we lost our son to suicide, a tragedy shaped in part by the deluge of false media narratives, by public calls to have me tried and arrested by a culture of punishment that played out in the full glare of a public hungry for blood. I want to heal my complex PTSD. I want justice for my brown boy child who, as a teenager, watched the world close in on his parents. Pieter, I tell you this so you understand that I am not speaking to you from theory. I am speaking to you from survival. You are simply not experienced enough to understand the depth of wounding whiteness can inflict on people not protected by white skin, even from the most well-meaning of us. Your post, sent from Bethlehem, from inside the cage of empire that you occupy through your white privilege, your passport, your ability to move freely, is the height of white arrogance. Bethlehem is not the Bethlehem of your Sunday school books or European art. It is the Bethlehem of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, Jesus son of Mary, born of Maryam, held by Yūsuf, names still carried on the tongues of Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike. It is the birthplace of a brown-skinned child under Roman rule, a child marked by poverty, empire, and resistance. Before 1948, Bethlehem was a city where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived alongside one another, sharing land, work, weddings, funerals, and memory. That world was torn apart by the Nakba, when Zionist militias stormed Palestinian homes, drove families into exile, and began the long, choking suffocation that today hems Bethlehem in. The apartheid wall cuts through its landscape. Illegal settlements spread across its hills. Military checkpoints sever its roads. Soldiers watch its streets. At its heart stands the Church of the Nativity, built in the fourth century by Helena, mother of Constantine, over the cave where Maryam is believed to have given birth to ʿĪsā. It is the oldest Christian church still in use, its walls darkened by candle smoke, its stones shaped by the knees and hands of centuries of worshippers. It bears the scars of the 2002 siege, when Israeli soldiers surrounded it, leaving bullet holes still visible. For the few Palestinian Christians left, the church is not a monument. It is survival. It is breath. It is a memory of belonging in a land that has never been allowed peace. And yet you sit there, Pieter, in your hotel chair, composing your post. You centre yourself. You wrap Bethlehem around your performance of atheism, as if your personal rejection of faith is relevant here, as if the mothers whispering Maryam's name over their dead, or the children holding onto the memory of ʿĪsā as a face like theirs, need your existential rebellion. I too fell into the trap, Pieter. I too mocked organised religion in my early years, imagining this was a mark of free thinking, not fully grasping that for those oppressed by whiteness, God is not always the white-bearded adversarial patriarch of European lore. God is the name called upon in the dark. God is the effigy that carries brown or black skin. God is sometimes the emancipatory presence when the state and the oligarchs have taken everything else. You do realise that sitting centre stage and telling people what to think or believe is just another form of toxic white patriarchy. It is hard not to see you. Even though I do not follow you every time I open my social media, there you are. But we have not yet seen you in Gaza, Pieter. We have not seen you at the places of danger, at the rubble heaps where families are clawing through debris to find their children, at the refugee camps where hunger hangs in the air. We have hardly seen Nkosi Zulu, the fellow podcaster you travel with, because you have, it seems, centred yourself. You have placed yourself in the frame, made this about your musings, your performance, your moment. So here is my advice to you. If you want to step into the crisis of meaning among Black youth, enter it with care. Understand that this crisis is not abstract. It is the crisis of growing up in a world that markets Blackness as cool but locks Black people out of power. It is the crisis of living with betrayals — by families, by leaders, by movements that promised transformation but handed down exhaustion. It is the ache of inherited trauma, the daily dissonance of being told to survive with dignity in a world built to break you. It is the pain of watching White people like you monetise their pain, presenting as hashtag revolutionaries while the poorest Black lives remain ungrievable. Do not mouth back at Black people what they already know or should think or believe just because you imagine your mind is so advanced. If you are going to enter this terrain, acknowledge the voices from whom you borrow your theory. Reference them. Honour them. We veterans know that not one original idea has come out of your strident, confident, know-it-all posture. To step into this fragile and painful space and position yourself as philosopher, as guide, as mouthpiece, begins to feel like decoy politics. Your white presence on the safe edges of Gaza, your curated benevolence, carries the stale scent of white settler colonialism, of benevolence politics we have long outgrown. We have long passed the stage where white boys in crisp shirts and borrowed slogans get to stand on occupied terrain and tell people how to feel about their ancient cultural and spiritual beliefs, as if their personal crisis of faith carries more weight than centuries of survival, as if their intellectual swagger counts for more than ancestral memory. If you truly care, take your seat at the back. Read. Listen. Name your sources. Understand the responsibility that comes with speaking in public. Understand that solidarity is not built on your centre stage. It is built where you are unseen, where others lead, where you stop feeding on spectacle and start dismantling the need for it. Explore the implications of privilege and race in Bethlehem as Gillian Schutte addresses Pieter Kriel's controversial TikTok post, challenging the narratives surrounding occupation and identity. Image: IOL * Gillian Schutte is a South African writer, filmmaker, and social justice activist. Her work interrogates systems of power, capitalism, patriarchy, and whiteness, and is rooted in the defence of the commons, decolonial justice, and the dignity of all life. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
IOL News
15-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Trust in SAPS hits historic low, experts call for reform and accountability
Trust in the South African Police Service has reached a historic low according to a recent study. Image: Doctor Ngcobo / Independent Newspapers Public confidence in the South African Police Service (SAPS) has plummeted to a record low, according to new findings by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), sparking renewed calls for urgent structural reforms, depoliticisation of senior appointments, and stronger accountability mechanisms. Released as part of the HSRC's 21st round of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), the data reveals that only 22% of South Africans expressed trust in the police in 2022, with confidence levels in 2023 and 2024/25 remaining virtually unchanged. These are the lowest figures recorded in 27 years. The study shows that public trust in SAPS has been on a steady decline since the late 1990s, with significant drops following incidents like the Marikana massacre in 2012 and the July 2021 social unrest. Despite a slight rebound around 2015, confidence never returned to previous levels and has continued to deteriorate. Recent allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi against a senior national commissioner for crime detection and Police Minister Senzo Mchunu have also dented the public's trust in the police service. 'The public simply does not feel like the police will show up when they call,' said Ian Cameron, chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police. 'Many people see the police as just being an insurance reference provider and that they need to open cases for insurance purposes. That has become the general feeling amongst people when you say, 'call the police.' They'd rather call a neighbourhood watch or even private security if they can afford it.' Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Cameron added that corruption and lack of consequences were at the heart of the problem. 'Lack of integrity management is a major crisis. The arrests and charges and infighting within the South African Police Service over the last few years has just made it far, far worse than before.' The HSRC's principal investigator Dr Benjamin Roberts noted that the survey tracks trust levels over a 27-year period and highlights persistent legitimacy concerns. 'A majority of the adult public never expressed trust in the police, suggesting that police legitimacy has been a longstanding issue,' the report stated. Chad Thomas, organised crime expert and CEO of IRS Forensic Investigations, said the deterioration of trust has its roots in leadership failures. 'There has been a deficit of top leadership for 25 years since Jackie Selebi was first appointed as commissioner of SAPS. This was a clear political appointment, as was the appointment of Bheki Cele and Riah Phiyega. None of the three had any policing experience.' He said even the appointment of career police officers in recent years has failed to restore trust, due to corruption allegations. 'Twenty-five years of ineffective and controversial leadership has resulted in the SAPS relationship with the citizenry of this land declining to a point where the trust relationship is basically broken.' Thomas believes restoring trust will require far-reaching changes. 'Politics and the police do not mix well. Appointments of senior leadership must be done via a clear and transparent process involving Parliament and civil society. Appointees must be experienced, clear of any controversy, meet the requirements of a lifestyle audit and thorough security clearance.' He further warned that without accountability, trust will remain elusive. 'Trust will be restored when we see accountability and consequences for the actions taken by bad actors within SAPS. The President should also consider appointing an Inspecting Judge of Police Services, much the same as the appointment of retired constitutional judge, Justice Cameron, who has been very effective within correctional services.' On the impact of major incidents like Marikana, the July 2021 unrest, and high-profile abuse of power cases, Thomas said: 'There will always be incidents that will lead to criticism of the police. It is their overall conduct that counts.' He controversially pointed to El Salvador's 'Bukele Model' as a policing system South Africa might study. 'The focus of this model is a tough stance on dismantling organised crime gangs and has led to a significant decrease in murder and other crimes. The problem is that criminals have too many rights in South Africa and we don't have space to house all the hardened criminals. I would suggest a state of emergency against crime and the conversion of army bases and unused stadia into prison camps.' David Bruce, a policing and criminal justice expert with the Institute for Security Studies, said the HSRC survey raises important questions. 'There are questions about the main causes of declines in trust and whether these are about poor public experiences of service delivery or related to disrespectful treatment by police or problems like corruption. Major public controversies such as the brutality by the VIP protection unit or the recent allegations about high-level corruption in the SAPS obviously don't help much either.' Bruce called for a re-evaluation of the country's entire policing model. 'There needs to be a programme of strategic strengthening of the SAPS, and it is to be hoped that the new Minister tries to carry forward work that has been done on this. However, this needs to be linked more clearly to re-evaluating the model of policing that has been implemented in South Africa.' 'South Africa's policing system is colonial in origin and needs to be grounded more fully in the reality that South Africa is a developing country that is characterised by enormous inequality,' Bruce said. THE MERCURY
IOL News
15-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Police Trust Crisis in South Africa: Only 22% of public confident in SAPS, survey finds
South African police trust hits 27-year low at 22%, according to HSRC survey, amid political scandal and corruption allegations. New inquiry aims to restore public confidence and ensure accountability within law enforcement. Image: File Police trust in South Africa has reached its lowest level in 27 years, according to a Social Attitudes Survey released by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) on Monday. The findings come amid a growing political crisis following damning allegations by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi against Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. The survey shows that only 22% of South Africans expressed confidence in the police in 2022, with similarly low levels recorded in 2023 and 2024/25. This marks the worst confidence ratings since data collection began in 1998. 'A majority of the adult public never expressed trust in the police,' said Dr Benjamin Roberts, HSRC research director and principal investigator of the study. 'The findings are expected to inform interventions aimed at restoring public faith in the police. By adopting a more community-focused and accountable approach to policing, we can work towards creating safer and more secure communities for all South Africans.' Trust in the South African Police Service (SAPS) has remained low for decades. Between 1998 and 2010, trust levels hovered between 39% and 42%. Confidence fell sharply after the 2012 Marikana massacre and dipped even lower following the July 2021 unrest, when only 27% of respondents expressed trust in the police, he said. Roberts, however, noted that confidence had almost returned to the 2011 level by the time of the 2015 survey round. He highlighted that the 2016 to 2020 period was characterised by modest fluctuation between 31% and 35%. ''The hard COVID-19 lockdown experience, which included instances of police brutality in enforcing lockdown regulations, did not appear to have had an aggregate effect on confidence levels based on the 2020 survey results. ''In 2021, public trust in the police dipped to a low of 27%. This appears to be linked to the July 2021 social unrest. Many criticised the poor performance of the police during the unrest. This was followed by a further 5 percentage point decline to 22% in 2022, with the 2023 and 2024/25 confidence levels almost unchanged, which may reflect increasing rates for certain crimes.'' The situation worsened in 2022, dropping to 22%, a historic low that has not recovered. 'The 2022, 2023, and 2024/25 figures are the lowest recorded in 27 years,' the HSRC report states. The release of the survey coincided with a major political scandal involving allegations of corruption and interference in police operations. At a press briefing in Durban on July 6, 2025, Mkhwanazi accused Mchunu of disbanding a task team investigating political killings. He alleged that over 121 sensitive case dockets were removed and shelved, and claimed that Mchunu and other senior officials were protecting a syndicate involving politicians, police, prosecutors, and members of the judiciary. Mchunu denied the allegations, dismissing Mkhwanazi's claims as "baseless and without evidence." Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ In response to the fallout, President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday announced the establishment of a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the allegations. Ramaphosa placed Mchunu on immediate leave and appointed Professor Firoz Cachalia as acting Minister of Police. Cachalia is expected to officially take up the post in August. Ramaphosa has tasked Acting Deputy Chief Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga with heading the commission, alongside senior advocates Sesi Baloyi and Sandile Khumalo. He stated that the inquiry would probe allegations that criminal networks have infiltrated police, intelligence, and prosecutorial agencies, manipulated investigations, and targeted whistleblowers. The commission will have powers to recommend suspensions, refer cases for urgent criminal investigation, and propose institutional reforms. The inquiry is expected to deliver interim reports after three and six months, with a final report submitted to Ramaphosa, the Speaker of the National Assembly, and the Chief Justice. It will also assess existing oversight mechanisms, recommend disciplinary action and prosecutions, and suggest broader reforms to rebuild public trust in law enforcement. 'These allegations, if proven true, threaten to undermine public confidence in the ability of the police service and other arms of the state to perform their duties without fear or favour,' Ramaphosa said. The HSRC survey and the ongoing political crisis within SAPS highlight the depth of the legitimacy challenges facing law enforcement in South Africa. With trust in the police at its lowest recorded level in nearly three decades, efforts to rebuild confidence remain urgent. 'We hope that this work will be used to design interventions to restore the public's faith in the police,'' said Roberts. Get your news on the go, click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel. IOL Politics
News24
26-06-2025
- Business
- News24
Tribute to the ‘man with no name'
This past Saturday morning, 21 June, our beloved man with no name, took his last breath and passed away peacefully in his sleep. I was shattered by the news, and I reckoned that this was how Richard 'Dick' Foxton would have preferred to leave us, quietly without a storm or commotion. And that's how he lived his life, calm, composed and always looking for serenity. As a public relations professional, there was no task too big for him. Those who worked with him know that he was a go-getter. He always took the initiative, working hard to achieve his goals even when there were challenges that seemed insurmountable. Foxton Communicating, his company, handled communication of corporate groups – from the mining sector to all sorts of organisations in the private sector, institutions and sports organisations. The customers were vast and multilayered and Dick managed their reputations, disseminating information to shape, influence and maintain a positive public perception. For this, the media space was his playground as he managed both positive and crisis communication. What set him apart from his rivals was that he was rooted in the history and politics of his time, both nationally and internationally, especially the countries he had lived in as a child, grew up and chose to settle in – such as his beloved SA. For example, in a meeting with him held after the Marikana massacre of 2012, when the mining industry was in crisis, in particular the platinum and gold sectors, and the CEOs were still concerned about the future, Dick took the initiative and suggested that government, while addressing other pressing matters, should express full confidence in the abilities of the management of the mining industry in the country to run the mines sustainably. He also pointed out that government should recognise the important contribution that the trade unions make to the running of the mining industry. He concluded: 'Such a statement has many implications for the reputation, status and standing of our country nationally and internationally.' Khulu Mbatha He travelled the eight-decade road from the backwaters of Agra in India to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, from Kenya to the UK and finally to SA, with aplomb, sometimes a little recklessly, occasionally even bravely, but always with a wry sense of humour. Dick was full of anecdotes, like no other person I've known in my life. He encountered public figures such as His Majesty Sultan Bin Said, Katharine Graham, Don Bradman, Hansie Cronje, Christopher Forbes, David Frost, Harry Oppenheimer, Helen Suzman, Barry Davidson, Stephen Mulholland, Aubrey Sussens, Sir George Martin, Michael Jackson, Nelson Mandela, FW De Klerk, Margaret Thatcher, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Michael Spicer, Gary Player, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe – politicians, business people, sportspeople and media gurus. His life partner, Professor Thuli Madonsela, once said: 'Richard thrives on bringing people together; and on understanding people and helping them strategically target their messaging.' I will dearly miss the time we spent together over the past decade and a half, and more so the dejeuners we had at restaurants around Johannesburg. He knew all the restaurant managers, the waiters and waitresses, and almost all the patrons of these restaurants by name and had a special seat reserved for him in all these eateries. As a devout Christian, he always started his meal with a prayer. He was well known and liked and he respected all, young and old, black and white. His one-of-a-kind memoir, The Man With No Name, is one of the best accounts of and a window into corporate SA's public relations before and after 1994. As a family man, I will miss the stories he related to me about Melo 3 Grand Pa, Melo 4 Grand Pa and Melo 5 Grand Pa. These were stories about one of his granddaughters who always reminded Dick how old she had become. My heartfelt condolences to his dear life partner, the children, the grandchildren, the whole Foxton and the Madonsela families and his many friends. Rest in peace, my friend. Hamba kahle. Mbatha is an author and a retired diplomat.
