Judith February

1 week ago | ewn.co.za | Judith February

The diary of Sol T Plaatje,written between 1899 and 1900, makes for fascinating reading. It also goes some way to putting the debate about land and expropriation in proper context. It is the only account by a black person of the Siege of Mafeking during the South African War of 1899-1902. Plaatje’s formal schooling was limited, yet he excelled at the then civil service examinations, and on the eve of the war, he was sent to Mafeking and, during the siege, acted as a court interpreter.

2 weeks ago | ewn.co.za | Judith February |Chris Oxtoby

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) held its first sitting for 2025 last week. Described as a "small but significant affair", the JSC spent just one day interviewing candidates for positions on the Electoral Court and the Labour Court. The commission also discussed the stats of several complaints against judges. The interview process normally lasts far longer – at the JSC’s previous sitting, in October 2024, the interviews spanned two weeks.

2 weeks ago | ewn.co.za | Judith February

We live in a noisy and boundary-less world. Anything can be said or done. Everything is happening at once and at breakneck speed. Daily, we witness megalomaniacs upending the world because they can. In this world, the strong are not constrained by the rules and the weak are dispensed with — whether in Africa or Palestine. Lies are served up as truth. The politics of the day is complex, with each day bringing some fresh hell stoked by lies in Washington.

2 weeks ago | dailymaverick.co.za | Judith February

In his production “Waiting for the Sibyl”, the artist William Kentridge reflects on the Cumaean Sibyl, who wrote fates on oak leaves. A swirling wind scattered them, blurring destinies — an image echoed in Dante’s “Paradiso” as pages forming his book. We live in a noisy and boundaryless world. Anything can be said or done. Everything is happening at once and at breakneck speed. Don't want to see this? Remove adsWould that we knew the world’s fate at this fraught moment.

3 weeks ago | ewn.co.za | Judith February

Transition: "The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another."The word has an effortless ring to it, as if a country can simply move from one state of being to another and that all the centuries of conflict can simply vanish at the stroke of a pen. As our country navigates the tricky waters of coalition government, it seems as if we are yet again in very complex territory, this time without the wisdom of our 1990s leadership.