SA will still stink of poverty

ROMEO’S Juliet was right. That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

You can call this country Guptastan or Azania but it will continue to smell like the divided land of hope, poverty, inequality and unemployment. Perhaps we should keep our colonial name to remind ourselves of our unfinished business of true liberation and reconciliation. But that’s just my opinion. For some of our readers’ views on the burning issue of a new name for our republic, as well as some of our contributing writers, see page 18.

And what do you make of Helen Zille’s apology and the compromise reached around her disciplinary charges? Some say this is about the fight for the soul of the party (see page 8). Others think it was a blessing in disguise and now Zille should step down as Western Cape premier (see page 19). Our view is on page 18.

We mark the passing of Toivo ya Toivo, a man “cut out of the same rock as Mandela”, Carl von Hirschberg, who wrote the Rubicon speech that was never delivered, and others on page 9. The article headlined “How to remove a president” is interesting reading. But don’t raise your hopes. The gist is that it’s one of the hardest things to do – anywhere on the globe.

As Friday was Youth Day, veteran writer Don Makatile reviews a book about the less popular truth about the Soweto Uprising (page 17).

Happy Father’s Day to all deserving dads. If you’d forgotten to prepare something special, don’t tell anyone. SM magazine has some last-minute recipes (see page 17).