Articles for Doron Isaacs

Remembering Yoliswa Dwane

Fierce, intense, principled: Equal Education would not have been possible without her

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Obituary | 24 October 2022

How two teachers helped George Bizos become a lawyer

A story for his 90th birthday

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Opinion | 14 November 2017

Pula! Botswana at 50: love, race and duty in the struggle for freedom

Shunned by the British Empire, for Seretse and Ruth Khama the personal was political

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Analysis | 30 September 2016

Piketty’s radical vision for education

During Thomas Piketty’s Nelson Mandela lecture a friend tweeted that, despite the standing ovation, many would choose what to remember. They would parrot his call for investment in education because that was unthreatening. Forget land redistribution, a wealth tax and the national minimum wage, just get the kids in school!

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 6 October 2015

Right to protest is under sustained attack

Equal Education’s recently concluded sleep-in protests in three cities have shown how disturbingly difficult it has become to hold legal protests, even for organisations fortunate enough to have access to resources and legal expertise.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 10 April 2015

Love is Blind: The youth wage subsidy and the South African media

Some media houses are cheerleading for the youth wage subsidy, despite the available evidence strongly suggesting that it is already a R2bn waste of public money.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 19 February 2015

Curro schools and segregation: back to the future

Today, Equal Education is protesting outside the Public Investment Corporation because it is an investor in the Curro private school chain. DORON ISAACS, Equal Education's Deputy General Secretary, explains his organisation's concerns with Curro.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 10 February 2015

Education as an elixir for freedom

In 2010 there were 3228 matrics in Khayelitsha’s 19 high schools. They achieved just 44 ‘A’ symbols between them, in all subjects.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 4 September 2014

If the boo fits …

In his 2004 Nelson Mandela lecture Desmond Tutu bravely suggested that an “uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity” constituted a threat to democracy in South Africa. He said that “too many are foolhardy and opt for silence to become voting cattle for the party.”

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 12 December 2013

What is Mandela’s Secret?

South Africa came very close to civil war in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but instead of a bloodbath there was the negotiated settlement, also known as the ‘miracle’. In fact parts of the country were in a state of civil war, and the miracle is that it didn’t engulf the country.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 9 December 2013

Zille’s misguided defence of Motshekga

Helen Zille may seem like an unlikely advocate for Angie Motshekga, but she is not. The two have come to each other’s aid on more than one occasion.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 23 July 2013

President Obama, we’re not in Kansas anymore

I have examined myself and cannot find an anti-American bone. I don’t feel conflicted at the fact that I prefer hamburgers to kneidlach soup or cholent or pap.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 1 July 2013

Fransman’s inexcusable behaviour

This was originally published as a letter in the Cape Times on 14 June 2013.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 14 June 2013

Debunking Jeremy Cronin on civil society

“Join our hands to fight the drug companies, join our hands to raise money from the private sector, join our hands in raising money from each of us who will contribute to save lives of everyone who needs to be saved.” With these words Zackie Achmat launched the Treatment Action Campaign in 1998.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 29 May 2013

Get Up, Stand Up, Fight like Lerato

On Friday Judge Phalatsi ordered that 13-year old Lerato Radebe be immediately readmitted to her school in Welkom. Every morning since 26 February Lerato was removed from her classroom and marched to the staff-room where she was made to spend the school day sitting idly. This was done because Lerato, whose family is Rastafarian, wears dreadlocks in her hair.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 20 May 2013

Apartheid: South Africa’s history, Palestine’s reality?

This is an edited version of remarks made by Doron Isaacs at an event hosted by the UCT Palestine Solidarity Forum for Israel Apartheid Week 2013. The other panelists, who spoke prior to Isaacs, were Professor Andrew Nash and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.

Doron Isaacs

Opinion | 15 March 2013