In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser

One of the listeners of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser enjoyed the episode in which I engaged Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh on his book The New Apartheid and left the following generous comment on my Instagram account, "Your analysis of Sizwe's book was amazing. Perhaps it would be great for you to give us tips on how you read and subsequently analyse and or synthesise a book's key argument...

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh argues in his latest book that apartheid did not die in 1994 but had, instead, been privatised. In a substantive, theoretically rich, introduction chapter, he puzzles through conceptual analysis to justify his resuscitation of the dreaded apartheid-framework. Mindful of the fact that life before 1994 was, in obvious respects, uniquely evil under apartheid, the philosphical work i...

Is the cabinet reshuffle announced by president Cyril Ramaphosa really going to strengthen government? What motivated the choices? How should we interpret what was just announced? What about the collapse of the intelligence ministry? Was that a sensible decision or a mistake? As for now former minister Zweli Mkhize- is his resignation from the health portfolio today admirable (if late) or was it a...

I was hospitalised with a very serious covid-19 infection. I could have died. I literally got hospitalised just in time. A brilliant pulmonologist Dr Frans Skosana saved my life.  Arguably, I should never have ended up that close to death's door. In this episode, I tell the story of what happened, why it should not have happened and what 7 lessons I have learned.

In the first of a 3-part series on the work and thinking of Professor Lewis Gordon , specifically on aspects of anti-black racism, we tackle a few crucial responses from some people on aspects of 'the race debate': 1. "Race is biologically meaningless...so stop talking about it! It is not real!" 2. "I don't see race!" / "I don't see colour!" In a c...

Brilliant South African Jay Naidoo joined me to pivot from diagnosing South Africa's problems to search for solutions. In this wonderfully energetic and energising conversation, we tackled a range of issues from how to build cross-class solidarity, how to bypass political weaknesses that won't disappear soon, and much more. The emphasis was on being future-oriented and avoiding fatalism...

In this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I answer a cluster of questions that an Australian journalist had put to me today: can president Cyril Ramaphosa help the African National Congress to recover from the mess it has occasioned? Does Mr Ramaphosa, more specifically, have the leadership ability to lead South Africa out of the current crises? After puzzling through these very inter...

In this edition of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I offer trenchant analysis of what is going on in South Africa right now. It is, I argue in this podcast, a mistake to interpret the looting as mere criminality and sheer opportunism. There is a complex number of both more immediate and longer-term drivers behind these events and anyone interested in a serious understanding of this crisis must...

I was joined by Adriaan Shipalana (CEO, Harambe Technologies) for a silence-breaking conversation about mental health. Adriaan, who cuts an intimidating figure as a life-long fitness enthusiast with a bodybuilding physique, is precisely the kind of person many would stereotype as self-assured, resilient and comfortable with his place in the world. But he has experienced mental health challenges wh...

Now that former president Jacob Zuma has been taken into custody to start his 15 month jail sentence for contempt of court, we should learn lessons from the legal and political events in relation to this case. In this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I put on my hat as a political analyst and work through five lessons and reflections that I regard as crucial for us to internalise as...

Professor Francois Venter (Wits University) joined us to answer a range of questions including, among others, the following: how do vaccines work in the body? How long does it take before I have protection against covid-19 after being vaccinated? What is the extent of the protection I have (besides the duration of it)? How should I think about the side-effects? What are the odds of blood clots for...

Former president Jacob Zuma has been sent to an unsuspended 15 months in jail for contempt of court by the constitutional court. He has now initiated two sets of legal proceedings in the hope of NOT going to jail. He wants the order to be stayed - in other words he wants the high court to help him not YET go to jail - while he tries his luck at the constitutional court, convincing it that it made...

In this special episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I explain and analyse why former president Jacob Zuma was sent to direct imprisonment for 15 months by the constitutional court today. What was the legal basis of the judgment? Was it sound? How did the court reason about the punishment aspect? And what was the basis of dissent by two of the court's justices? What, finally, is the...

Many of us become attached to our core beliefs, including social and political convictions. It becomes easy to dig in our heels, and to not be open to re-examining a cherised conviction you have held for many years. But this is not an intellectually admirable quality. We should be open to persuasion if we encounter good reason or reasons to abandon that which we have always regarded as correct (un...

Historian Vashna Jaganarth and filmmaker Michael Klein (who made the well-received short film THE ENDLESS CHAIN about Wynberg Boys' High School) joined me in this podcast episod  for a radical rethink of schooling. We are so used to accepting that schools must exist in society that it might be weird to even ask whether or not schools should and could be dismantled. In this podcast, however, w...

She is more than just one of South Africa's best broadcasters, her name neing synonymous, in particular, with Khumbul'ekhaya and Uthando Noxolo. She is a healer who has used her profound gifts to help many families deal with and repair broken social relationships and historic trauma. She is a national treasure. But who is Andile Gaelesiwe? What about her own trauma, past, family, joy, an...

Concrete Rose, by Angie Thomas? is a story about Maverick Carter, a 17-year-old black boy, who sells drugs, has a dad in jail, and who learns his girlfriend is pregnant. But the treatment of the issues and quality of writing is what makes this book absolutely stunning. Angie writes in the voice of the teenager, with authenticity. More than that, she helps us to get inside his head and his heart, c...

I did an in-depth interview with Themba Maseko, author of For My Country: Why I Blew The Whistle On Zuma And The Guptas, about his direct experiences as a top civil servant who was pressured (without success) by the Gupta family to help them steal from the state.  The phenomenon of 'state capture' has become part of the South African lexicon, and represents not just grand theft of public...

Despite almost thirty years of racial desegregation of our schools, many former Model C-schools and private schools are still institutionally racist or exclusionary in other ways. In this edition of In The Ring With Eusebius Mckaiser, we talk frankly about what is going on in our schools, and what needs to be done to decolonialise our schools so that they are more just and inclusive spaces for all...

Is it morally wrong to have racially exclusionary romantic and sexual preferences? Can one draw a meaningful distinction between desire as such and the expression of that desire such that race-specific sexual desire is ethically permitted but not the explicit, public expression of these desires? Is it madness for dating apps to stop users from expressing racial preferences in their desired partner...

In this special edition of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, I analyse the Jacob Zuma corruption trial that ALMOST got underway today. The use of lawfare to fight internal party political battles is as South African as braai ("barbecue"). But the intersection of law and politics can be rather confusing.  But don't fear- I've got you covered! I explain the essence of what happ...

Uber drivers literally have a front row seat watching the lives of a diverse group of riders who use the Uber technology daily to get from one part of the city to another. I decided to record some of the Uber chronicles of drivers in Johannesburg. I requested trips and struck up conversations with these drivers, who agreed to share with me some of the most fascinating stories of what they have see...

In this podcast, I analyse the late night shenanigans or the African National Congress. The secretary-general of the ANC Ace (Eish?) Magashul  has been suspended. It doesn't seem like he accepts the suspension. What the hell is going on? And what does it MEAN? I give my perspective, my interpretation of the madness.

Academic, author and analyst Dr Richard Pithouse joined me in this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser to put liberalism on trial. I am a liberal. Sometimes, in the South African context, it seems like 'liberal' is expected to be an embarrassing tag to be labeled with, let alone one to choose for oneself. Dr Pithouse has written many essays over the years, critiquing liberalism...

In this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, 20-year-old rugby fanatic Qaphela Gobodo tells the remarkable story of what happened when jealous peers at school poured paraffin on him, and set him alight. He was nearly burnt to death and ended up in hospital for many months and countless operations to repair a body that had come within seconds of death.  Yet, despite the deep physical and...