While it might still be too early to say that the political storm in South Africa has blown over, the past week has seen the torrent of threats, racial slurs and irresponsible statements from the camps of the AWB and ANCYL supporters make way for a more constructive narrative.

By Nic Haralambous of www.sarocks.co.za

No. It isn’t.

I have a bee in my shoe (not in my bonnet). It’s stinging me. It’s always there in a place that you can’t quite find but you can feel it stinging the underside of your foot. And it hurts.

Over the last two days I have read countless emails, SMS’s, tweets and Facebook status updates along the lines: “I’m seriously considering leaving this country”.

Let me just understand this correctly. Once upon a time, AWB political stalwart Eugène Terre’Blanche is murdered, Julius Malema kicks a journalist out of a media briefing and says stupid things (shock, horror, awe) and an AWB spokesperson, interviewer and anchor make fools of themselves and some South Africans decide it’s time to openly, in a public forum, declare that it’s time to consider leaving this place.

The giving of Easter eggs and the season of cherry picking coincide in South Africa at this time of year. In a way these two acts contradict each other. The giving of Easter eggs reminds us of Christ’s life of compassion, sacrifice and forgiveness. The act of cherry-picking reminds us of the practice of selective choosing and purposeful discarding.

One thing is for sure, the architects of our constitution were not cherry pickers.  They were concerned only with the message of compassion, sacrifice and forgiveness as they wrote the preamble, which requires that we work together “to heal the divisions of the past” and “build a united and democratic South Africa”.  Add to this the provisions that deal specifically with the outlawing of hate speech, reinforced by the South African National Editors Forum’s Press Code which does the same, and one wonders why there is so much cherry-picking going on!

Greg Nott, Global Lawyer of the Year 2009

When you imagine 'The Global Lawyer of the Year', one probably conjures up an image of a tall, suave, fast talking man with swift hand movements and a swanky walk; a man whose tongue eases over fancy legal terms whilst being secretly cunning.

Imagine, then, my surprise when I meet the actual Global Lawyer of the Year, Greg Nott, who is refreshingly not: your typical lawyer.

Nott is warm and unassuming, obviously interested in the lives of those around him and completely at ease engaging with his staff members.

But Nott couldn't have made it to where he is today by just being kind. He loves the art of the deal and his interest in the media, politics and law have blended together into a career where pertinent political issues have met with his skill of negotiation and found a way for the underdog to win.

What is the secret to combatting crime? This question has frustrated me time and time again and as I've asked people in the police force, politics and business this question, no one has had a certain answer.

This question has once again been in the forefront of my mind after attending a community building workshop by award winning author, Peter Block, who was in South Africa recently.

For the first time, I think I've found a satisfactory link in the chain to overcoming our biggest evil, although that certainly wasn't the focus of the workshop.

It hasn’t been a great week in sunny South Africa. 

Winnie Madikizela Mandela reportedly accused our icon of being a sell-out. This, the man many of us, here and abroad, believe to be a modern day saint, the greatest champion of human rights, reconciliation and forgiveness that the world has seen in modern times.

Julius Malema has personified everything many of us fear about African leadership, caught red-handed he plays all the “whites don’t belong here” cards he can.  Now he is being taken to court by his longtime white foes and being accused of “hate speech”. 

The community of Lawaaikamp in the city of George, in the Western Cape, is similar to many other township areas: A community of small houses and dusty streets, the area struggles with poverty, unemployment, crime and drug abuse. And like many others, it is a community that loves soccer.

With less than 100 days to go before the FIFA 2010 World Cup, South Africa’s stadiums are receiving high praise from across the world, more than two thirds of the match tickets have been sold, and other infrastructure projects are nearing completion.

In this week’s newsletter, we share with you the thoughts of a South African living abroad, Miles Giljam, who explains why he thinks white South Africans, starting foremost with himself, need to consider returning home to build the new South Africa that we were once so excited about. The views expressed in the article are Miles’ own.

The flood of memories and emotions evoked by the release of the movie Invictus should provide South Africans, especially white South Africans, with an opportunity to reflect on the state of reconciliation and race relations in our country.

On the corner of Twist and Plein streets in the inner city of Johannesburg stands an historic red-roofed building that has been witness to the city’s decades of transformation, and is itself an agent of new beginnings, bringing change to the people of the city.

The Drill Hall, as it is still known, was built in 1904, its name testifying to its original purpose as a military barracks. South African soldiers sent out to fight in World War I and II, were recruited and mobilized from this point.

Since the State of the Nation Address I have pondered on why so many felt the speech “flat”, why much of what we have achieved as a Nation was left out, why some of the important pronouncements lack re-assuring detail and even why some of what was said, was said in the first place!

I have gone through the speech in detail “tracking and changing” the content to deal with the above. I have specifically not included new topics like the state of the defense force or inflation targeting, just stuck to what our President chose to present while “adding flesh to the bone” trying to make it more meaningful to those of us who listened attentively and are passionate about the future of our country. Above all I have attempted to be constructive.

When you enter the surgery department on 9th floor of the Orange Block at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg, you'll find photographs from cities across the globe posted on the walls, an upmarket doctor's quarters, sparkling floors and friendly staff. I enter the reception to find the man leading this troop of healthcare professionals, ready and waiting. 

Prof. Ken Boffard, Head of Surgery at Charlotte Maxeke (formerly Joburg Gen) Hospital, has recently been appointed President of the International Society of Surgery. It's the first time in the organisation's 150-year history that the position has been filled by a surgeon from Africa.

Peet du Plooy is a man every South African needs to meet right now. The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature's Trade & Investment Advisor is spearheading proposals for South Africa's future energy systems that all of us can agree on, regardless of social standing or political inclination. Read on and you'll see why. 

The mechanical engineer from Pretoria spent six and a half years in Eskom's Research & Development department focusing on improving the efficiency of coal power stations. “It was here that I got to the innards of how the coal power stations work,” says du Plooy. “My frustration at the time was that it seemed like I was fixing something at a micro scale, in the sense that what I was doing wasn't fixing the policy that kept us building these machines.”   

My name is Julie Cunningham, I have just joined the SA – Good News team as Editor on their website after Ian Macdonald, who developed the brand over the last five years, left to pursue his passion in renewable energy. For the last six years I have been in the TV news industry, but I wanted to pursue my passion for writing and speaking, and wanted to leave a positive legacy in the South Africa media.

Having come from the South African TV news scene, I would like to share some of my insight and thoughts about how the media go about making decisions, like the eNEWS report that ran last Friday by a journalist who'd just recently joined their Johannesburg operation.

South Africa - The Good News ended off the year by celebrating Christmas with 150 small children from the crèche we have adopted in Doornkop in Soweto. It was a special occasion enabled by our co-sponsors Digipos Systems and eg solutions, with stationary gifts from BIC. We took the kids to the zoo, where the polar bear performed, the hyenas ate, the baboons entertained and the lions slept!

The global economic slowdown was one of the big stories of the year and it ended the longest economic upswing in South Africa's history. It has been a tough year, but there was still plenty to cheer about in 2009.

After 5 years as editor of South Africa's premier good news website, Ian Macdonald is leaving South Africa - The Good News at the end of the year in order to pursue opportunities in the renewable energy sector. These are some of the things he has learnt during his time with us.

The following is a speech delivered by former newspaper editor Richard Steyn at the Michaelhouse Speech Day prize-giving in August. It has been slightly edited for this newsletter.

"I don't want to talk about the Reitz 4", said Professor Jonathan Jansen.  "I want to talk about the Reitz in all of us."

I read and hear constantly that we are "worst in the world" in a range of areas. For example, the SA Institute of Race Relations recently claimed that our schools are the "most violent in the world" amongst other things. We hear constantly that our HIV infection rate is the "worst in the world", that our doctor/population ratio is "amongst the worst in the world", that our murder rate is the same. On top of this, we are constantly reminded that Africa is a basket case and "worst in the world" at most things.

As a nation we are addicted to publications that measure our economic, social or political standing on a global scale. We lend so much weight to these surveys and research reports that they often lead our national media agenda. This practice is understandable, as a developing country we want to know how we are fairing in comparison to the rest of the world, and more importantly we want to know how the rest of the world is rating us.

Unfortunately many of these surveys and reports, that find their way into the headlines of the national media, are used to show what South Africa does wrong, rather than what the country does right.

The recent request by Eskom to the National Energy Regulator of SA to increase tariffs by 45% every year for the next three years has been met with outrage, shock and a flurry of impotent online petitions in a bid to stop it. But the price hike is actually good news.

"Good news in Nigeria, is there any?" was the incredulous response to the next book we intend to publish. (Much the same as when we launched South Africa - The Good News and Africa - The Good News!). And it got me thinking, why do we do this work, why do we focus on good news out of South Africa and Africa when seemingly there is so much bad news?

This week I learnt that building a community is difficult. And I learnt that it is so very easy.

Thursday was one of those days when I felt that I was at the start of something special. Packed into a large room with 500 of the country's most dynamic young entrepreneurs, a dream took root. The dream: to turn Cape Town into South Africa's version of the famed Silicon Valley.